The Zeta Project Season 3 Episode 5
by clutzattack
Summary: Kim's WB The Zeta Project Road Trip
1. Default Chapter

THE ZETA PROJECT****

SEASON THREE

Disclosure: Please don't sue. All my money is going to my overpriced college. Feel free to find something to sue them for. The amount of tuition they charge should be some kind of a crime capable of suing them for…

I started writing this fanfic late, and I went on vacation, and I just started my third quarter so sorry about the fact that it's more than a month ( or two, or three, or four… ) later than the last one. If you like my work, please leave feedback at If you don't like it then watch out--because I'm going to send elf ninjas to your house. ;D Oh, and while Bucky has had more appearances in my episodes, as of late, I don't plan to keep it that way. This is not supposed to be a Bucky, Ro, Zee fanfic. And sorry this is so long! Consider this a "Kim's WB road trip episode". Let me know if you like reading long stories, though… I'm going to try and post this in chapters because it's so long.

CHAPTER 5 NOTE:

Originally I had a question posted with the answer in my biO. To shorten my lengthy bio I'm posting the original question and the answer here.

Just as a fun quiz: If you think you know what "LLL" means, put it in your feedback for the chapter "Day 6" or somewhere.

Answer: (Paraphrased from the Boy Scouts of America "Emergency Preparedness" Merit Badge Handbook (C) 2004 )

LLL means "Operation Complete" (More formally used for Ground-Air Visual search parties, though...)

" Hot White " Ep. 5 Season 3

"Okay, now if you'd please put these on before we go any further," Bucky said, handing them each a colorful handkerchief. The handkerchiefs were dark in color, and opaque. One was black, the other navy blue. He'd picked them up for only a few creds at a discount store. It wasn't important that the design on them was hideously ugly. It only mattered that they were dark, and someone couldn't see through them.

"You want to blindfold us?" Ro remarked, sounding rather put off and offended. "You don't trust us?" she asked, in a pitiful tone, trying to play on Bucky's guilt.

"It's for your own safety," he insisted, determined not to let her convince him to change his mind.

"I'll be able to walk better, if I can see where I'm going. Walking around in the dark doesn't sound very safe to me," she continued to insist adamantly.

"Geez! Haven't you seen those movies? It's best that you don't know where you're going or where you've been in case the Feds ever do catch you. You wouldn't want to be caught with such information in your possession."

"Yeah… If we get caught, the first thing they're going to want to know is where you and your geek friends have been hanging out," Ro said sarcastically. "In other words you're just covering your own butt."

"No, really! It's solely for your protection!"

"Uh-huh, yeah sure, we believe you," Ro said sarcastically again, looking to Zee for support.

"While it does seem, unlikely, it may be best to take the precaution, just to be safe," Zee commented. In another instance Bucky might have sneered at his victory of wills over Ro, but now wasn't a time to be gloating that Zee had sided with him and not her.

Zee wondered if he should mention to Bucky that with his built in GPS guidance system, it wouldn't matter if he wasn't blind folded. He'd be able to find his way to Bucky's home again, with his eyes closed.

"You know that I'm going to have to have to ask you to turn of your GPS system, just to make things fair" Bucky added, looking at Zee. "I could place a magnet on the top of your head, but it would look weird and it could damage some of your other files so I'm just going to ask you to do this under the honor system."

Bucky had obviously realized this as well. While the honor code reflected a person's integrity, was it really worth it? What if they ever did need to find Bucky and they couldn't reach him by phone? Knowing where he lived might be really helpful. But Bucky was doing them a favor by taking them to his home in the underground network and it wasn't just his life that would be at risk if anyone else found out where they lived… Satisfied with his decision, Zee's eyes glazed over for a second as he turned off his GPS system. "Done." He reported.

"Good. Now do you need help tying these on?" he asked.

"I can do it by myself!" Ro replied gruffly. She didn't want Bucky to accidentally catch her hair in the bandanna or to make it too tight. Zee was too tall for Bucky to even properly tie it on if he'd wanted to, so he did it himself.

He held four fingers up in front of Ro's face and asked her how many fingers he was holding up to check if she could see through the bandanna. "Do you think I'd tell you if I knew?" Ro snapped back. She felt incredibly embarrassed, and he wasn't helping. She couldn't wait to get there as soon as possible so that she could take this dumb bandanna off of her face.

"It'll have to do then," Bucky said. If they wanted to peek there wouldn't be much he could do to stop them, unless he wanted to put bags over their heads. That would look even more strange than the rolled up handkerchiefs over their eyes. There was just one more test that he could do to see if either was cheating…

He swung his arm back as if to strike Ro in the face, right near her eyes. She didn't flinch or move. She wasn't cheating. He wasn't going to bother to test Zee. Bucky then took each by the arm and guided them down the street, being careful not to let either of them walk into a trashcan or street post. They were getting strange looks from everyone that they passed by. Ro could only imagine the strange looks they must be giving them. Maybe it wasn't as bad for her as it was for Bucky, who actually had to look these people back in the eye?

He led them down to the corner, then carefully across the street. He went down another block and over two blocks then stopped at the bust stop. Unbeknownst to him Zee was counting the number of strides they took. Being a robot, he could make his foot steps the exact same distance, allowing him to perfectly keep track of the distance they'd traveled. 24 steps North of their starting point, then a left turn, and 39 steps North from that new direction… Until they arrived at the local bus stop.

Ro didn't need to be tracking the steps they took to know that they were at a bus stop. She could hear the large vehicle pull up, and the sound of people getting on and off at this one point. But they didn't get on this bus, or the next one. She wanted to ask Bucky why they were waiting here for what seemed like twenty minutes. It's not like more than one bus came by this route on a regular basis…

Zee's internal clock was marking the time that each bus stopped. There was one about every eight minutes. The current time was 10: 38 a.m. So far they'd had two buses stop, then move on without them getting on. Finally when the third bus pulled up Bucky told them, "This is it. Step up two steps."

He paid the bus driver the fare wages, and to prevent the bus driver from thinking that he was holding up Ro and Zee or something, he told him a lie to satisfy his curiosity, and anyone else who might give them strange looks on the bus. He whispered to the driver, "I'm guiding them to a surprise party."

The bus driver, disinterested, closing the doors to the bus, then pulled away from curb and didn't think any more on the matter it as it wasn't his business.

Bucky quickly ushered Ro and Zee to have a seat near the back of the bus before it pulled away from the curb. The most likely time someone was to become off balanced on a bus or train would while it was slowing down or pulling out.

Ro tried to count the stops until they got off, but eventually lost count. Sometimes they were stopped at a red light, and other times they were at an official stop. Zee was more careful in his listening as he kept a tally of each time they stopped, and another tally of each time they stopped and the bus doors opened. Having a memory of a computer, this was simple enough. Luckily the bus driver was required to open his doors at a stop, even if no one was waiting, to keep his tally correct.

After riding the bus for what seemed like an hour, Bucky finally told them that it was time to get off. Zee counted the number of steps they were taking and carefully noted each turn they made. He felt comfortable keeping track of where they were going, as he could rewrite the direction notes in code, rather than something as blatant as a map from a directional satellite guide. Things became interesting when Bucky had them start climbing a flight of stairs down, after having entered a very draft building. They stopped walking, and Bucky told them to wait for just a second. He went up and started knocking a rhythmic pattern on a wooden door. Zee recorded the sound. The door opened, and Bucky beckoned them to follow him inside. The door shut behind them. "You can take off the blindfolds now," Bucky told them.

"Finally!" Ro sighed. Despite her efforts, her hair was still a little ratted by the bandanna. The room was brighter than what she'd imagine an underground network to look like. The glow of the dozen monitors illuminated the room with a bluish, whitish tint. There was about one person per every two computers. Each person also seemed to be making use of both computers at once rather than letting them sit idly. Her eyes felt a little sore from having to adjust from being in complete darkness for the past hour and a half, to this bright room. She yawned loudly, and began to stretch. It had seemed like a really long ride.

"Why were you telling people that you were taking us to a surprise party?" Zee asked, now that they weren't in public. He'd heard Bucky tell the bus driver this, but didn't know why. Wouldn't it have been best not to say anything at all?

"I was getting weird looks. I didn't want them to think I was kidnapping you or something."

"This has got to be one of the most embarrassing days of my life…"

Zee was going to remind her of the time that she had been dressed up as an attendant in the Hub, but stopped himself before he could speak. Last time he'd brought up an embarrassing memory, she'd told him to delete it. He couldn't remember what that memory was, but he didn't want to risk mentioning the incident and having her tell him to delete that memory as well. He was unable to resist her wishes and will, and even though he didn't want to, he'd do it if she asked him to. It would be best not to risk it, but not mentioning it at all.

"Hey, you're here now, that's all that matters," Bucky tried to tame her frustration.

"Here, I'll show you around and introduce you to everyone," he offered.

She started to take a few steps forward, but found herself losing her footing as her foot was tangled in a computer cable. "Whoa!" she said, stumbling. Zee reached out and caught her before she fell on the ground and pulled out the cable with her.

"Be careful!" Bucky scolded her.

She shook her leg free of the cable, not feeling appreciative for being reproached. She looked around the room, and on the floor. It was a jungle of multi-colored vines connecting the computers and all of the hardware and other gadgets attached to them. It was an absolute mess! How could he blame her for not finding a place to put her foot? There were skinny wires, large power cords, and several wires strung together to make one large cord. With all the wireless technology they had she found it hard to believe that he still needed this many cords to hook up the computers.

Bucky went up to the first computer. The guy sitting behind it looked older than Bucky, but not by more than three years. He was deeply engrossed in his work and didn't even seem to care that they were in the room, as well as the other young boys at their computers. Bucky must have let them know they were coming, as shown by their lack of alarm or surprise. "Hey, these are the guys," Bucky said to the guy.

'These are the guys'. It almost sounded like they were being turned in. The guy at the computer looked up, and made eye contact with both of them, then said a brief, "Nice to meet you," and returned to his work.

"So which organization are you wreaking havoc on now?" he teased him, while looking over his shoulder.

"I've got the final draft for _Popular Techtronic's "_top games of the year" list for their next issue. They gave "Cosmic Alliances" a 3 star rating!"

"What?! No way!" Bucky shouted indignantly. It's preposterous!"

"Exactly why I'm going to change it."

"Does it deserve a higher ranking?" Zee asked. He was venturing into a conversation that neither he nor Ro knew anything about as neither had played the game. Being on the run more than ever now, Ro found that she didn't have time to catch up with every game that hit the market.

"Higher? The game has your character walk down ladders head first! I'd give it half a star at the most! What kind of authentic first person perspective is that?"

"How's the rest of the game then?" Ro asked.

Bucky and Bryan shuddered, and seemed unwilling to talk about it. Bucky then left Bryan to finish up with his work, and introduced Zee and Ro to the rest of the members of the underground network, or at least the ones that were present. "This is Jerry, but we call him 'The Black Knight'."

"And what are you working on?" Ro asked him.

"You know that virus that was going around last month--the one wiping out the computers of those anti-file sharing activist companies?"

Zee remembered it well. He'd come across an article on it on the net when looking for information on Dr. Edmund. "The Excalibur virus, wasn't it? They just released a patch for it a week or two ago."

"**I** just released a patch for it a week ago." Jerry corrected Zee. "Now I'm writing another virus for the loophole I left in the patch."

The third person they met was writing another computer virus called, "Pandora's Box." His specialty, however, was modding online computer games.

"You guys are just too much," Ro sighed. With such computer skills, why didn't these people put their knowledge to good use and get a real job? They met several more of Bucky's friends, who all seemed to be working on similar projects.

After Bucky had introduced them to the last of his friends, he sat down at his own computer. "You still haven't forgotten what we're here for?" Ro asked.

"Course not! He answered, as he began to hack his way into the NSA files." He made it look so easy-like anyone could do it. Zee began to think that he could do this much faster than the rate at which Bucky was searching through the pages, but it wasn't like looking for information at the ground wire. There would be times that Bucky had to decode some encrypted security file lock, then would suddenly dive into a program that was full of java script. It looked like absolute gibberish, but from reading through it Bucky would be able to pick out select information and use it to find his way into the files.

To Ro, it didn't look like they were making any progress. However, after about two and a half hours, it seemed like they'd made a break through of some sort as Bucky pushed the keyboard away. It turned out not to be a victory for them, but a defeat. "Nothing!" he declared.

"How can that be?!" Ro asked.

"You're asking me?" Bucky remarked. "How should I know!"

"We saw him less than two days ago. Someone must have some information about this!"

"If they did, they certainly didn't post it on the internet. This is the list for all of the reports that were filed within the last week. None of the headers say anything about Dr. Edmund."

"Of course they wouldn't! Even the NSA has to keep secrets, right? Maybe they're using a code name for him?"

Bucky sighed, "You'd have to read through all of the memos to find out if they're the right ones. There's at least a hundred, here and I'm not going to be the one to go through them all."

It was his cue, "I'll do it," Zee offered.

Bucky turned the flat computer monitor towards Zee, and handed him the wireless keyboard. However, Zee didn't take the keyboard, but interested his cable out of his hand into the jack spot on the computer. Amazingly, with all of the other hardware Bucky had hooked up, there was still a free one for Zee to use. Zee then began to scan through all of the files, searching for any parallel stories of what had happened two nights ago at the Japanese restaurant. "Bucky's right. There's nothing about him."

Ro's heart sank. Why did it seem that the powers of fate were stacked against them?

"Is it likely that they haven't filed a report yet?" Zee suggested.

"It's always possible, but these guys are usually on top of things. It's not like them to file something like this late," Bucky replied.

"Perhaps they filed it manually, rather than electronically?" Zee suggested.

"ZEE!" Ro scolded him. It was a pessimistic thought: one that she was not in the mood to hear. He looked at her humbly. What did he say this time? It was a logical possibility. "The information has to be there. You're just not looking in the right place, Bucky!" she insisted. "There's no way that the NSA could not have anything on this case!"

"They could very possibly have information on this case. But they may be choosing not to make it accessible on their website for security reasons."

"What about reimbursement payments to the restaurant for loss wages or for the back of the train car Lemack ruined when he shot at us. Can you check for those?"

"While I don't think that kind of thing is usually posted online, I'll check just for you," he sighed, and began to search through the NSA data base for such files. In another half hour, he brought up a few purchase orders. "Here's the one for the restaurant, and for the street trash can, and for the train car, but they don't mention anything about the case that was related to the damaged incurred. This isn't standard policy for them to leave such information out… It seems to me that they're trying to keep things quiet about this."

Ro stared at the computer screen, angry. She was not ready to give this up yet. "So do you need to be looking in files with a higher security clearance then?" Ro asked.

Or what about personal email, or specifically, Bennet's personal email? Can you check that?"

"I'd have to find out what the ping number is for his ISP on his computer."

"ISP?" It was not a term she was familiar with. Nor was "Ping".

"Internet Service Provider," Zee said. He had some knowledge of computers even if he wasn't as good at getting around the internet as Bucky was.

"And how can you find out about their personal email by finding out their ping?" Ro said, hoping he'd explain what ping meant in his explanation so that she didn't have to sound stupid by asking.

"If a person has their computer on, and hooked up the internet, there's a specific signal or ping that their computer sends out to the company who they get their internet from. If you can find out what that number is, you can use it to access the files for that particular computer from another computer. It's like having your entire computer online. Not just select files on a webpage, but the entire thing, including hidden files."

"So how do you find out this ping number? Can you get it from the internet provider?"

"I could get a list, but I might not know which one that Bennet was specifically using on his computer. The other problem is if he doesn't have static number, but if it connects to a different one each time…"

"Then how do you find out?"

"I could get the list, then I'd have to track him online. It takes a while to isolate a single pin so he'd have to be on a long time, or I'd have to track it over several days."

"Well, we have the time, don't we?"

"You do, but I don't."

Well of all the selfish things! Didn't he know how much they needed his help? How could be turn them down like this! "Well maybe if you hadn't spent so long taking us here, you'd have time for it!"

"Ro, calm down," Zee tried to repress her anger. "He's doing us a favor as it is…"

Bucky could feel he was in hot water, and for once, he didn't deserve to be. "No, no, it's not like that! I don't have the time because I'll be going away to an all boys Science Camp for the next two weeks. When I get back, then I'll have more time."

Ro's anger melted from her face. "Science camp? You?"

"Yeah. I go every year. It's a lot of fun too. I'd invite you to come with, but the first day is tomorrow and the reservations are closed."

"Tomorrow? Why didn't you tell us you were going away? Where is this camp?" Ro asked.

"I didn't tell you because you didn't ask. The camp is only three hours from here, up in the mountains. Despite its remote location, they still have a satellite up there, so there's still internet access. If you want I can try to budget in some time to do some internet monitoring up there.

"Only if it doesn't get in the way of your other activities up there," Zee said politely. While it would be noble of Bucky to forget about himself and do them this favor, he didn't feel right in asking him to go out of his way for them.

"It should be fine. I can email you anything I find. Or…" he said, trailing off. He seemed unsure if he wanted to propose his next thought, but decided to do it anyway. "There's a girl's camp across the lake from us. If Ro wants to go there for a week, we'd be in the same vicinity."

Ro thought about it for a second. "It could be fun," she said. While she preferred nice hotels, spending a week or two in the outdoors might not be so bad. "But what about Zee?" she asked.

"If there's an opening because someone didn't show up, he can come to science camp with me. If not, he'll have to go with you."

"Didn't you say it was a girl's camp, though?" Ro asked for clarification.

"I did. Zee, you'll need to go shopping for a new wardrobe, and you'll need a new name," Bucky teased him.

Ro felt stupid. For some reason the fact that Zee could change appearances, even to become a girl, had completely slipped her mind. She didn't know when it happened, but she now always regarded him as male, even as a male robot. But weren't robots gender neutral? When had it started that Zee seemed to even regard himself as a male? Whenever he holomorphed into someone else, it was usually always a male figure, so she knew he preferred the gender. She knew that she preferred him as a male because the first time she saw him he was disguised as a male, and his voice was in a lower ranger than most women's voices. But why did he prefer himself as a male? She was sure that it could be blamed on whoever synthesized his natural voice in the lower pitch range. So from the beginning, he must have always been a little more masculine than feminine. It would be fine for him to become a girl for a week or two, as she was sure that he'd prefer to return to his masculine form when they were done. Besides, he was having enough time trying to understand the human nature as it was in the form of a male. To try to do it from a woman's perspective would overload his circuits.

"If the camp runs at the same time, won't it be full?" Zee asked.

"Nah. There are more boys interested in going to science camp, than there are girls interested in going to girl's camp. You can check online to be sure that there's room," Bucky said, as he closed all of the windows that he'd had open on the NSA website to begin a new search.

Ro groaned. They'd spent hours looking up the information, and he'd just closed the windows! While there hadn't been anything important that they'd found, she hated to think that they'd have to waste all of that time, looking for the same information again. Bucky opened the website for the girl's camp. There was a much higher fee for last minute reservations, but they were still accepting applications the day before. Apparently they really needed people to come so they could meet their minimum costs. "Well, I'm not going to camp in the middle of nowhere, alone. Sign up both up," Ro instructed.

Bucky began to fill out the forms for both of them to go in camp. "You'll have to pay for it in person," he let them know, after he sent in the paper work. "They're not accepting online payments at this time."

"That's fine," Zee said.

"I have to pay in person too," Bucky grumbled.

"What's wrong about that?" Ro asked. It didn't seem like too much of an inconvenience.

"They've gotten smarter this year."

"How's that?" Zee asked.

"Well, they've realized that several of the people going to the camp are very good with computers, and know how to get into their financial records, and clear themselves for having been financially cleared when they haven't paid anything."

"Isn't it dishonest not to pay?" He didn't like hearing that Bucky was someone who took advantage of someone else. It seemed very wrong.

"I always paid, but other people I know didn't. But the way I see it, they confiscate enough equipment, from us, which they don't return, to cover for the expenses."

"I don't blame them!" Ro stated, "If they didn't pay I'd want to collect from them anyway I could!  
"It's not just the people who don't pay. It's everyone. You see…there's this running tradition, to play pranks between the different camps during the night, and day, and between the other cabins. If they catch you they take whatever you've got on you."

"So they're going to take a bunch of rolls of toilet paper?" Ro laughed. She could imagine a group of guys going to go TP someone, then having it confiscated.

"Well, the thing about that is you have to do it with colored toilet paper, which is a little more expensive than plain white paper. That way they know you're not using the camp's supply. But they won't make money off of selling toilet paper. The stuff they take is night vision goggles, radio transmitters, remote control operated rovers…"

"I don't think I want to go anymore," Ro said. "Not if I'm going to be bombarded with practical jokes concocted by adolescent boys."

"It's not really that bad, Ro. Both sides do about an equal amount of pranks on the other."

"If you've got electric rover equipment, that doesn't sound very equal to me."

"That was just for spying on them. You know, even though they're girls, they can think of some really cruel tricks to play on us as well. Like, last year. They tricked one cabin into walking through a forest of poison oak!  
"And how they'd manage that?" Ro asked, incredulously.

"They dropped a fake 'secret meeting place map' and so the cabin followed it, hoping to eaves drop on them. When they got to the destination, they realized that they'd been tricked."

Ro bit her lip. She still wasn't sure if she wanted to go through with this anymore. But she had to admit, the practical joking did actually sound amusing. "The activities in they day are a lot of fun, especially on the last day. They have a big competition between the two camps."

"What kind of competition?" Ro asked.

"Outdoor sports mostly. Canoe races, archery contest, mini-Olympic sports…It all evens out because those of us who go to science camp aren't generally athletic, and girls aren't generally as athletic either. And you have plenty of time during the week to practice canoeing, or swimming. I really think you'd enjoy it if you went. And I did just send the forms in… But then it's nothing to you if you as you haven't paid anything yet, or even if you'd paid."

"You know I can stay up late to watch out for such jokes…" Zee said, supportively.

"Sure, why not," Ro conceded.

"You know, there might also be some other people with talents like mine… They might be able to help out too."

"I don't think it would be wise if we involved them," Zee noted wisely.

"That's fine. Here, let me print out the list of things that they said that you'll need. You only have a few hours to buy the stuff because the first day of camp is tomorrow as well, and I need some time to get you out of here, and to pack myself."

"Not another hour and a half bus ride," Ro groaned.

"More than a half hour. I took the short way to get here, we'll be going the long way home."

"The long way?" Ro pouted. "I think this obsession that you're being followed is past normal concern. I think you've moved onto being paranoid…"

"Ro," Zee tried to calm her down. Having him mention her name was enough. He was being patient and was taking these indignities calmly, so she might try to learn from his example as well.

With the list Bucky had printed, in hand, Zee entered into the large camping store. He'd told Ro that he would be fine without her, and suggested that she go into some of the stores and find some clothes that she wouldn't mind camping in. She had actually been the first to suggest that she needed a new wardrobe as her regular outfits were inadequate for such a terrain. She'd said the same thing whenever they tried some new sport or went somewhere with a new climate. The plan was for her to return to the store he was in after three hours of shopping time, then together they could revisit each store that she'd been in. Then Zee could purchase anything that she'd asked to be put on hold for that store. It seemed like a very efficient plan, except for the fact that Ro hadn't been sure if she wanted to leave him all by himself in the store. "Ro," Zee had said, "Don't worry. If worse comes to worse, I'll just hand the store clerk the list, and let him pick out the things we need."

"That's what I'm afraid of. Give them an opportunity like that and they'd take you for all you've got."

"But you know I've got an unlimited cred card…" He had protested.

"Who knows? One day, you might not have it. Then what would you do? Just try to use common sense. Don't let him sell you any bridges…"

"This is a camping store. I don't think they sell bridges here…"

"Just go ahead inside. I'll be fine. I'll meet you back here in three hours," and with that, she had left.

The sales clerk looked up from the cash register as Zee entered the door and smiled as Zee walked in. Zee nodded in return, the headed to the back of the store where the tents were. A tent, was the first thing on the list. Some of the tent models had been removed from their packaging and were out on display. Others were represented by a small scale miniature replication. These replicas looked like small doll tents.

He reached out for the tent that was closest to him, but then realized that the model he'd selected came in several different sizes! And was this even the right style to have chosen? He began to regret having let Ro leave him here alone. If only she were here as well… She wouldn't have a problem finding the right one. The list didn't specify what size or style he needed. It merely said, "1 tent." At least he knew that he didn't need two tents.

He selected a medium sized tent that could accommodate him and Ro, as well as their baggage. It was also a decent height that Ro should be able to stand up in it. While they had the traditional, old-fashioned pole tents, Zee chose one of the newer self-inflating tents.

From the back of the store Zee continued to browse around. While checking out the outdoor canopies, to see if those might be better than a tent, he came across a circus-tent type object that was hanging from the ceiling. It was made out of a fine mesh material and despite the fact that the store's ceiling was very high, there material had so much drapery it touched the floor and spread out into a small circle. After finding the descriptive caption, he learned that this was a large mosquito net that could drape over and cover an area with a fifteen foot radius. The packaging said that it was ideal for sleeping out under the stars, or for extra protection against bugs getting into someone's tent.

While he wasn't susceptible to getting bit, he could imagine how mad Ro would be if she were to be attacked by the blood-sucking mosquitoes. Zee stared at the net. He could imagine Ro scolding him for buying it, but then later being grateful when she's the only one who doesn't get bit. Not even bothering to look at the price, he picked up the net. He then realized that he would probably need a hover cart to carry all of the stuff he was going to buy, and got one from the front of the store and continued shopping.

Even with the assurance of the mosquito net, Zee selected an assortment of bug repellent, lotions, and creams as they were on the list as well. After loading up his cart with plenty of Cutter products, as it was the brand of repellants available, he went to select the sleeping bags he and Ro would be using. While it seemed wasteful to be buying something he didn't have need for it would seem strange to have his sleeping bag disappear during the day when he wasn't in it.

Judging by where the camp was being held, Zee knew that he didn't need to buy a mummy bag that would be good for -40 degrees. But, as they definitely proved to keep warmth in better than the generic brands, be bought two that were good up to -10 degrees. He easily found the rest of the items on the list, but for some reason, had a hard time picking out a flashlight for Ro. There were personal flashlights, head lamps, candle lanterns, and lantern and area lights. These had different power sources, and then there was always the "candle power" to consider. A light with candle power with 40 candle power was said to be forty times as bright as a single candle flame. He didn't want Ro to be blinded, but he didn't want her to wander around in the dark with a yellowish light.

But why did she even need a flashlight? He had a very luminescent headlight in the middle of his chest, which shown far brighter than any of these other lights. He didn't opt for a head flashlight, as he knew Ro would think it looked dorky, got her a regular hand-held one. "I shouldn't have to though… Wouldn't my light be enough?" No, because he couldn't allow anyone to see that he had a light in the middle of his robotic chest.

His internal alarm clock went off, and he realized that he'd somehow managed to spend three hours in the store. It would be smart of him to start looking for Ro in the store somewhere, then. But he shouldn't worry too much if she wasn't here now. It would be easy for her to become delayed in a dressing room. He could picture her looking at her watch, then realizing it was two minutes before the third hour, then telling herself that she could still try on the half a dozen outfits she had left in that time period. He could always grant her more time to shop later, but if the outlets closed, he would have no control over that.

Having two cartfuls to carry all of the items that he was going to buy, he proceeded to the checkout. He surmised it would take the cashier at least ten minutes to ring all of his purchases up. That would give Ro some time to get here as she wasn't in the store at the moment. The clerk seemed amazed at all of the items Zee was buying. After ringing up the total amount, Zee swiped his cred card through the teller to pay for it all. The clerk was amazed with the large quantity of Zee's purchase. Just from this one man, they'd met their month's quota already.

"Do you need any help out to your car?" he asked Zee, eyeing all of the bags that Zee might have to carry.

"No, I can make due," Zee replied, then began to pick up the bags, one by one, sliding them onto his arm. He would be fine as long as the bags held. While he had bought a lot of stuff, only the sleeping bags, the tent, and the net had a lot of bulk to them. The rest of the smaller stuff was easily crammed into one bag.

As he was coming out of the store, he saw Ro coming toward him. She had a bag in her hands, "Ro, I thought I told you that I could buy anything you needed when I was done shopping here," he told her.

"I know, but aren't you wouldn't want me to become too dependent on you, now do you?"

As long as they were together, he didn't mind if he spent the rest of his life taking care of her. But with his current position with the NSA, it was wise for Ro to be concerned that one day she might be on her own if he ever got caught. "Right," he agreed with her. If she had any opinion on anything, he usually agreed with her.

"Let me help you put those in the car," she offered. It seemed like an unselfish offer of one's self, until she added, "You're going to need both hands free for the stuff I've got on hold."

Rather than remind her that she might not need so many outfits, he smiled to himself, as he handed Ro the smallest, lightest bag, to carry out to their car. Despite that his arms were loaded with bags, he still found a free hand to unlock their car with. He began to stuff the larger items into the back of the trunk, past Ro's scrutinizing eye. She didn't comment on the individual items, but commented, "You sure bought a lot of stuff!"

"You think so? I got everything that was on the list." It almost hurt that he had bought all of this stuff, and they would only be using it once.

"That's a mistake that first time campers always make. They pack too much so they have this big bag to carry around. But I guess it doesn't matter for you. You can be the one to carry it all," she laughed, still holding onto the one bag that he'd handed her. He was almost done loading his bags into the car. When it'd seemed that he'd finished, Ro brought her bag forward. She opened it to peer inside. "Zee, what's this?" she asked, holding up one of the objects.

Of all people, Ro would be the last person he'd think to be ignorant enough to recognize cord when she saw it. "It's 200 ft of cord," he replied. "It was on the list…"

"This isn't cord, it's rope!!!" He voice was raised, but not in anger or frustration. It was more in an incredulous tone. "Let me see the list," she requested.

Zee handed her the list. It seemed like he'd really messed up now. Ro looked over the list for what Zee had confused rope and cord with. No where on the list did it remotely imply that they needed anything remotely resembling to rope. It did just simply say, "Cord".

"Zee, cord is used for outdoor clotheslines, or for holding down your tent roof, or for small arts and crafts projects. What you have here is mountain climbing rope! And 200 feet of it!"

"Well, now that I now what it's intended utilitarian purpose is, I guess it is a little too much. I was thinking that we'd need something with a higher strand count that what's in standard cord, and as it didn't specify what length we needed, I got 200 ft to be prepared. I guess I messed this up… Should I go return it?"

His words were so humble and meek… They made her feel bad for even having raised her voice a little. "No, this will be fine. At least this way, we know our clothes aren't going to sag into the dirt on a weak clothesline." Zee seemed to smile a little bit more, glad to hear that things would work out after all. "Is there anything else you want to ask me about from that list?" she asked.

"If anything, we'll be over prepared, rather than under," he replied.

"Good then. The outlet closes in an hour, and there are several stores we have to stop by again, so let's get going!" she said, excited, pulling his hand behind her. He quickly closed the door of the car, then followed closely behind her. While others might think he was strange, he was really having a good time.

An hour later, they returned to the car, Zee loaded with more shopping bags. "Well that was nice," Ro commented, throwing her share of the bags into the back of the car, then seating herself comfortably in the front passenger seat. Zee finished up loading the car, then sat down in the driver's seat. Looking over at Ro, he could see that she was tired. In fact, she wasn't awake more than ten minutes, before she fell asleep against the window. Zee looked over her and smiled, she always looked so peaceful when she slept. She never seemed worried that if she fell asleep there wouldn't be someone there to watch over her, or that she might wake up in unfriendly company. That kind of reassurance is worth almost anything.


	2. Day 1

The smell of pancakes awoke her in the morning. The fact that she'd woken up in an unfamiliar surrounding didn't worry her in the least. She rolled over in the bed, hoping to go back to sleep for another five minutes, but Zee had something else in mind. "Good morning," he said. "I ordered breakfast: pancakes, hash browns, eggs, bacon, orange juice, strawberries, and a side of cereal."

"So that's what smelled so good," she said, sitting up in the large bed of the hotel they were staying in. She looked around the room. All of their camping gear was neatly packed and in a corner of a room. Zee had folded all of her new clothes, and had packed them into her knapsack, as well as his, as he didn't need the room for himself. It made his story that he was a girl, all more convincing if he had a bag full of girl's clothes.

Zee brought the trays of food out to her, and set them on a small cart next to her bed. "Zee, you've brought me my own buffet!" she teased him, looking at all of the food. She'd never be able to eat it all!  He always over did things, but she didn't really mind.

"I talked with Bucky earlier this morning. He's going to meet us at the 'park and ride,' so we can give him a ride up."

"If he was planning on getting a ride with us, don't you think he should have called a little sooner?"

"He likes to make his plans at the last minute, just in case someone might be trying to follow him."

"Give me a break," Ro muttered under her breath. Bucky was just too much for her sometimes.

After she'd finished eating, and getting ready, she helped Zee carry their equipment to the car. Then, they took off to go and meet Bucky. He was patiently waiting for them at the "park and ride." He had a large bag on him, and was carrying his laptop under one arm. Ro wondered if the back of the car was hovering lower than the front end of the car, and if it would start dragging on the ground once they put Bucky's stuff in.

"Hey thanks for picking me up guys," Bucky said, carelessly throwing his bag in the back seat. He then climbed over, and took the adjacent seat in the back of the car. "I'm ready!" he announced.

Ro didn't turn around to look at him. Something about how he expected favors so easily from them, and it seemed like they had to work hard to get him to do something for them, bothered her to the point where if she looked at him, she might let slip an unkind word or two. She didn't know why it bothered her so much, but it did. This week would be nice though… She could take out these unhappy feelings on him in the means of "friendly pranks."

With Bucky and his gear inside of the car, Zee began to drive towards the camp. The first hour was highway driving, then the next half hour after that was scenic driving. The last hour and a half was the most miserable. It was all uphill on a windy mountain slope. The distance they were covering was rather small, but because they had to go around and around it, to get it, it took forever!  Also, while Zee could have been driving a lot faster, and getting them there sooner, there were other cars in front of them, who were too scared to go over 15 miles per hour, around a curve that was labeled as 40.  He would have illegally passed them on the left side, cutting into the other lane, except that there were occasional cars that were coming down the mountain, having already dropped off their passengers at the camp. What really irritated Ro was how these slow moving cars refused to use the turn out lane, when they passed one.

"Pass them on the right!" she urged Zee.

"It's not going to matter if we get there a few minutes ahead of these other people," Zee declined. "If the feds were behind us, then I might make such a risky maneuver. But there's no point to put you in danger now, just to get there before the others."

His sincere interest in her well-being comforted her. She rolled down the window, rested her chin on her arm, letting the wind blow through her hair.  "Don't worry, Ro. We'll be there shortly," Bucky insisted. He'd been to this camp before, enough to know when they were getting close.  "You're not car sick, are you?" he asked.

"No, just bored," Ro replied. Being car sick would be the only thing that could make this drive worse.  Bucky was right, as the welcoming sign to "Camp Pico Blanco" came up in only a matter of minutes.

"This is it," Bukcy announced.

Zee followed the line of cars into the camp ground.  There were convenient signs to guide motorists and campers to their camp sites, and through the registration process. Either way, Zee was safe following the line of cars.  There was temporary parking set up, which could be used to unload gear and passengers so that cars were not blocked in or out. Zee parked the car, then set out to help Bucky with his stuff. Ro unbuckled her seat belt, and reclined her seat back, content to wait in the car until they returned. The fact that she was waiting, would encourage Zee to quickly come back for her so they got get moving. She was about to kick of her shoes, and air her feet out the window when Zee asked, "Are you coming?"

"Yeah, I guess." She up righted her chair and opened the door. If she came with them, she could get a look around to see where things were, in case she ever did come here to play a prank on Bucky. As the evil ideas came to her of what she could do to him while he slept, she suppressed her twisted smile- no she shouldn't be mean!

No sooner had she stepped out of the car, a small cloud of dust arose in the air. The dirt on the ground, was very dark in color, and very fine. She could tell that all of her nice clothes would be in sepia colors by the time camp was over. She shut the door of the car, and followed Zee and Bucky to registration check in.  Several of the other boys in line were holding laptop computers or various other technological gadgets under their arms. "What geeks," Ro thought to herself. "They should call this Nerd Camp." This led her to wonder about the real name of the camp. "So, Bucky, what does 'Pico Blanco' mean?" she asked.

"The literal translation is 'hot white'. I don't know why though. I think the more appropriate name would be 'Home of the Black Mountain Boogers.'"

"What did you just say!" Ro nearly shouted. She couldn't believe he'd say such a vulgar thing out loud! The other boys in line had heard him though, and were laughing hysterically.

Zee didn't reproach him but asked, "Why's that?"

"The dirt here is really dark and fine, so it displaces easily. It gets in everything. You could stick your pant legs in your shoes, and your socks would still be brown by the time you took them off. The dust naturally gets in your nose, which means you'll have brown boogers for the following week after you've gone to camp."

"That is soooo gross!!" Ro shuddered.  "Why do you bring your computers, though, if the dirt is so bad? Isn't it bad to get dust in those things?"

"Well, they do have a filter, but we keep them in the cabins. Those stay pretty free of dirt and dust, so it's okay."

"Cabins! Why do you get to stay in cabins, and we have to sleep in tents?" Ro complained.

"Hey, I didn't make the rules!" Bucky said defensively. "Why are you asking me?"

Ro could see that it was pointless to argue this further.  Once Bucky paid for his reservation, he was assigned to a cabin number. As it was important that she know where this cabin was, she continued to follow Bucky and Zee to the cabins.

On the way to his cabin they passed the mess hall. Ro wasn't worried that the girl's camp wouldn't have a mess hall. If they didn't, Zee would have bought cooking gear and a year's supply of food while at the camping store.

The cabins were all identical, except they were painted different colors. Each cabin was two stories tall and housed about six boys in each. There were two small rooms on the bottom, each with a set of bunk beds, and one room on the top. Bucky would be sleeping on the ground floor of Cabin B3.

Rather than staying to let Bucky introduce them to each person in his cabin, who all had gone to science camp the last year, Zee and Ro headed back to their car.

"It's a nice camp," Zee commented.

"I just hope ours isn't too worse."

Zee got into the car, and began to continue down the main road. As the girl's camp was on the other side of the lake, the road led to both camps. There would be a sign to let them know when they'd reached the girl's portion of the camp.

When Zee passed the banner labeled, "Girl's Camp Up Ahead," he changed his holographic projection to a more feminine appearance. The change startled Ro. Instead of a handsome tall, dark haired man, there was a beautiful dark haired young woman. Zee smiled at her. "Is this appropriate?" he asked, still using his masculine voice.

While she didn't want to admit that she was a little more turned off now, she replied, "You look like a girl, which is what you were aiming for, but your voice doesn't sound like one."

He was well aware of this. While Ro probably thought he'd forgotten, it was actually because he didn't want to startle her by doing the complete change at once. "What should I call myself?" he asked, using a higher pitched tone.

"What name did Bucky put on the reservations?"

"He used your name."

"Do you want me to pick a name for you?"

"Pick something you can remember. I won't have trouble remembering it."

Ro felt excited. It was almost like she was picking out a name for a newborn, even if this name would only last for a week. Her favorite names came to mind, but she'd probably slip up, which could cause problems, so she'd have to save those names for another occasion. "How about Zena? Then I can still call you Zee for short."

"That's fine."

As they went a little further down the side road towards the camp, they came up on the real name of the camp on another large wooden sign. In Ro's opinion, "Camp Hidden Falls," was far more respectable as a name for a camp than "Hot White." Hidden Falls sounded nice, it had intrigue, romance, and seemed like an appropriate name for an outdoor camp.

There was an average number of cars in the temporary parking lot when they pulled in. Less than at Bucky's camp, but still a respectable amount.  It wasn't just going to be a handful of girls.

Ro and Zee got out of the car and went over to the registration check in. The counselor greeted them with an overly zealous smile.

"Name?" she asked.

"Ro," Ro said, trying not to give out as little information as possible. There were less than a hundred girl's names on that list. She could afford to spend a little time to look through the short list to find "Ro" on it. "We just registered last night," Ro added, wondering if it might help her to find her name any quicker. She worried that their name might not even be on the list, and that they really were too late to register. Then all of that money that they'd spent on the camping stuff would have been wasted—not that money ever did matter.

"Rowen, Rosalie. I have you down for two reservations."

"Yeah, the other one of for my friend here, Zena, or Zee for short." She mentally made a note that she'd have to bug Bucky about having written Rosalie down on her name rather than just Ro.

"As you're in the late registration group, you still need to pay for the camp fee," the counselor said, matter-of-factly. It was still a business, even though she didn't like to ask people for their money.

Zee brought out his cred card, and gave it to the counselor to process. When she was done with it, she handed it back to him. "You'll both are assigned to the "Redwood" campsite. I've got a map here that shows you where everything is. You can have your driver come to the site to drop off your stuff, but please don't take any more than 20 minutes.  Other people want to get through and drop off their stuff and the road is not very big. Afterwards, your driver can follow this road out to the main road."

It sounded like she expected everyone to have been dropped off by someone else. "We drove up ourselves," Ro commented. "Do you have a place for permanent parking?

The counselor looked a little surprised, then embarrassed, "Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that most people get dropped off... While we didn't leave much room for permanent parking you can park your vehicle behind the mess hall with the rest of the staff's cars. Here, I'll circle it on the map," she said. After circling it, and the Redwood campsite, she handed the map to Ro.

"She seemed nice," Zee commented on the way back to the car.

            Ro nodded her head, but didn't say anything to justify why she was agreeing. In her experiences, it was best not to become attached to people or to get to know them too closely. Why bother to get to know someone if they were just going to have to leave when the feds showed up? The other problem with getting to know people too closely was that if their identities were revealed, anyone could turn them in.

            Zee followed the map to the Redwood campsite, then parked the car off to the side. It was a very pretty campsite. It was located right next to a creek, which undoubtedly led right to the lake. Zee took away from the beauty of having the creek so close by commenting on how mosquitoes lived near water, which meant that their chances of getting bit were also increased.

            "Should we set up camp?" Zee asked.

            "What else can we do? We have to get our car out of here in twenty minutes."

            "We could just drive around and see where things are."

            "I think I'd like to get set up first," Ro said. "There will be time to go exploring later." The exploring part that she actually had in mind was to be to find the "hidden water falls" in the area. They weren't necessarily hidden as the trails to get to them were marked on the map, but she was still interested in finding them.

            Zee got out of the car and began to pull their gear out of the back when he was stopped by an accusing, put-off voice, "What do you think you're doing?"

            "I thought you wanted to set up," Zee replied, turning towards Ro, who was standing next to him. But, she wasn't looking at him, and didn't seem to be the one who had just spoken. Zee turned the rest of the way around.  Another car had pulled up and a group of girls had gotten out. The girl who had spoken to him was tall, with blonde hair, braided in a crown braid.

            "This is our campsite," the girl said, rather haughtily, and rudely.  While he wasn't human, he could sense the bad vibes in the air, especially between the girl and Ro. He wondered if Ro had met this girl before somewhere else, of if this was their first time.

            "What a coincidence! The counselor said this was our site too!" Ro said, trying not to use her "mocking" tone. She wasn't anxious to get an enemy the first day of camp, but who did this girl think she was?

            "You must be mistaken, because Redwood is our campsite," the girl said.

            Ro cupped her hand over Zee's mouth before he could play back the voice of the counselor telling them that this was their campsite as well. In his head, though, he heard the counselor's voice, and saw the list appear before his eyes. It had said "Redwood" next to their names. This girl knew that they were at "Redwood" so it's not like they had the wrong campsite.  Once she was sure that Zee wasn't going to do his impression, she released her hands from his mouth.

            "Why don't we go and talk with the counselors about this?" Zee suggested, trying to keep the peace.

            "Oh, you must be new here…" the girl replied, snidely. "Well, let me set things straight. Redwood is our site. Since you're new, we'll give you five minutes to move your car and gear out of our faces, or else you'll wish you'd never come," she threatened Ro and Zee.

            Ro was thinking that she'd like to see her try to do something to them. She was also considering going back to the counselor. But the staff wasn't going to kick her out of the camp… They'd say that they had to share the site, which isn't something that Ro wanted to do at this moment. She would be more than happy to move elsewhere than to have to put up with these jerks.  What she really wanted was for Zee to teach them a lesson in manners… But knowing how things always turned out, they'd be the ones who were sent home and justice would not prevail. Her new plan was to save some of the pranks she'd been planning to play on Bucky and use them on these girls instead.

            "Ro, we should go," Zee said quietly.

            "Yeah, I can't stand the smell of this trash any longer," she said glowering at the girl in the center of the group, then to each one in turn. They all had the same snooty look on their face. She threw her bag into the back of the car, and got in the front seat, rather calmly. She didn't slam her door shut. She wouldn't let them know that they made her mad. She wasn't going to cry as some girls might in a situation like this. The one thing that did upset her was that now she had no idea where they would be staying, and she could sense that this wasn't just a one time instance. These girls seemed determined to have their way, and if they thought that they could walk all over people, they would undoubtedly take advantage of that. She'd had experience with bullies before in the orphanage. She usually didn't run away from such things, but as Zee had suggested they leave, she'd let this pass by.

Zee put his bag into the car, but didn't go to the driver's seat after that. He returned to the girl for one last word. She was laughing with her friends, at how they'd gotten their way. She smirked when she saw him coming toward her. Zee stopped in front of her. She looked him down from head to toe. This girl didn't look like she could pack a punch, so she wasn't worried about him hitting her. "If you do anything more to hurt my fried, YOU might be the one who wished you'd never come," he said, his voice piercing and serious. After that, he turned around and got into the car. That might have been the first threat he'd ever made in his life, although he hadn't been the one to guarantee he'd do the punishing. It would be inevitable though if Ro became upset. Justice must be served.

"Ooooh, scary! I think I want my mommy!" the girl taunted them after he'd already got in the car, then began laughing with her friends as Zee drove off. Ro looked in the rear view mirror. The girl's parent remained in the car… Had they seen the whole thing and hadn't done anything about it? It must be why the girl was brought up with such rude manners. However, Ro gained a little smugness, when she thought about how they had a car with them, and the girl didn't. However, that might prove to be worse for them as they'd now be worrying that someone might slash their tires in the middle of the night. But there was a difference between vandalism and jokes.

The best thing of all was that Zee was with her to make sure that she was safe and protected. And the fact that he could holomorph into one of the camp counselors, was also very convenient.

"What did you say to her?" Ro asked in the car. They were just driving around now rather than setting up. Where else should they go?

"Nothing important," he replied. He didn't want Ro to know what he'd said about her.  "Do you know her?" Zee asked, changing the subject.  
            "Of course not!" Ro replied. "I've never met anyone that rude in my life!"

            "What should we do now?" Zee asked.

            "Maybe we should just go home?" Ro suggested.

            "If you really want to…" he said.

            "Oh, I don't know! I thought that this was going to be fun, but not with those girls!"

            "You don't know that they're going to be mean all week long."

            "Trust me. People don't change that easily."

            Zee slowed the car down as there were some other cars stopped in the road.  There were some people unloading bags, and people. "Should we ask them where we should go?" he asked.

            "Why? What makes you think they'd know?"

            "I don't, but isn't it worth trying?"

            "Sure, why not," Ro said, then got out of the car once Zee had parked it.

            Ro and Zee went up to one of the girls who seemed to be directing the drivers of the cars towards the exit. She didn't look like a counselor, or parent, which should mean that she could be a camper. "Hi," Ro said to the girl. "We just came from the Redwood site, and now we're looking for somewhere else to…"

            The girl cut her off before she finished. "Redwood, eh? They kick you out?"     How did this girl know? Had this happened before? "The girls over there are very territorial, but you've probably realized that. They come every year, and take the same site, every year."   

            "Are you a returning camper then?" Zee asked.

            "Yeah, it's my fourth year here. It's like this every year."

            "Why don't the counselors do something about it?" Ro asked.

            "I think they know what's going on, and in the past they may have tried to do something about it, but it seems like they don't try anymore. Or it's not worth the trouble to them."

            "If they knew, it would have been nice if they'd redone the assignments before sending us over there."

            "Yeah, it would be. But, what are you going to do?"

            "We're not sure who we should ask about what other campsite to stay in."

            "Well, why don't you follow me to the Laurel campsite? It usually has room."

            "What about anyone else who has the same problem as us?" Zee asked.

            "They usually find another site, and ask if there's room there, like you did."

            "Sounds fine to me," Ro said.

            "I'm Mandy," the girl introduced herself.

            "I'm Ro, and this is Zee."

            "K', now if you just want to follow me, the campsite is further down."

            Zee got back into the car, and followed the girl to the Laurel site. It was the furthest campsite away from the cafeteria and mess hall, but was the closest to the boy's camp side. It wasn't  about halfway to the showers, which was very pleasing to Ro. They parked the car, and unloaded their gear, again. "You can set up your tent practically anywhere you like. It's not like the other sites where you have to conserve space. Laurel usually doesn't have a lot of people in it because we're so close to the boy's camp across the lake," Mandy explained.

            "Why is that bad?" Zee asked. It was ideal for them as it meant that they were closer to Bucky.

            "Well… It's a running tradition to play pranks on the other camp. As we're closest, we usually end up with most of the pranks on us. But don't worry, the pranks are usually harmless, and really lame—and it's not like we don't do our fair share either."

            "That's not too bad, I guess," Ro said, thinking about the common cliché, "If you can't take it, don't deal it."

            "The real problem is the dumpsters."

            "Dumpsters?" Zee asked, being the clueless person for once instead of Ro.

            "Yeah, they've been known to attract wild animals like raccoons and bears in the middle of the night. Since they're really close to our site, they sometimes wander through and scare the campers. As long as you don't have food in your tent you'll be fine. So far, no one's been hurt. If you do have food, you can just tie it up in a tree. I personally don't care about the food rule though. I've always got snacks in my tent," she laughed.

            But Ro was still worried. "I don't want to sleep in a tent!" she pouted.    "I might have an idea," he said, looking at a group of four trees growing rather close together.

            "What is it?" Ro, asked, curious.

            "It'll take me a while to set it up, and I'm not sure it'll work, so I don't want to disappoint you until I see if it works.

            "Okay then," Ro said, not pressing the matter.

            "Would you like me to show you around?" Mandy asked.

            "Sure, why not," Ro said. It would allow Zee to do his thing. She suspected it had something to do with the fact that he was going to turn into his robot form, which he wouldn't want someone else to see, which would explain why he didn't want to show her or tell her what it was that he had in mind.  "Actually, we need to move the car out of the way and park it behind the mess hall, if you want to come with me," Ro offered.

            "Sure," Mandy said, not bothering to ask if Ro really did have a license.

            Once they were practically out of sight, Zee looked around the rest of the site. There were several tents set up, but no one was in them. Most likely the girls were visiting with friends at other sites, or possible congregating in the mess hall. An early dinner was going to be served in less than an hour. He removed the rope from his bag, as well as the tent. He walked over to the group of trees. Checking one more time to make sure that no one was looking, he extended his arms and legs. In the middle of the four trees he began to create a horizontal dream catcher or spider's web, out of the rope about seven feet up. He had to hurry and get this part done before anyone came by or before Ro and Mandy got back.  He continued to weave the rope smaller and smaller until the center hole in the web was smaller than a foot. He still had a good deal of left over rope, so he cut the rope and melted the end with his small phaser. The rope was made out of nylon so it didn't burn, and now it wouldn't fray with the end melted. Now to test its strength… Zee pulled himself up onto the middle of the web net, and resumed his complete feminine appearance. The net was really tight, and only sagged slightly from his weight. The ropes were still securely anchored around the trees and did not seem to be slipping. Yes, it would hold them.

            "How did you do this?" Mandy asked, amazed.

            Ro was surprised as well, only she knew how he had managed to get up that high in the tress. Just how was Zee going to get down without blowing it?

            "Like this," Zee said. He took the short end of the rope he'd cut off, and threw it around one of the tree trunks.  He then dug his feet into the truck of the tree, while leaning back, holding the rope with his arms, and began to walk himself down the tree. "There's just enough rope to make a ladder," Zee announced, a little proud of himself.

            "It's wonderful!" Ro said, going over to admire it. He hadn't even hurt the tree with nails or anything! She reached up to touch the net, but eight feet was higher than she could reach. They would definitely be safe from bears or raccoons wandering through, and possible short pranksters.

            Zee took the tent out of its box, and began to unfold it. He took out the battery operated air filler, and connected it to the port on the tent. He turned the pump on, and the tent began to slowly take shape as the chambers filled with air.

            "You're not going to put that on top of the net, are you?" she asked Zee.

            "I was, unless you don't want me to."

            "I was just thinking that it might be nice if we could sleep out under the stars."

            "And get bit by the bugs?" Mandy scoffed. "Not me."

            "Well, I did buy this as well," Zee said, bringing out the mosquito net.

            "What's that?" Ro asked.

            "It's a net. It covers up to a 15 foot radius sleep area."

            "Where are we going to hang it from?" Ro asked.

            Simultaneously, all three of them looked up at the trees above. How convenient was it that there was a tree branch right above their tent?

            "I've got some cord," Mandy said, and then ran to her tent to get it.

            "You sure you don't need it?" Ro asked.

            "They say to bring it, but I've never had a use for it until now."

            "Thank you," Zee said. He then looked for something heavy to tie it to. There was a large branch near the fire pit in the campsite. He went over to it, and broke off a limb.

            "Whoa!" Mandy said, in awe, "You're strong!"

            "Nah," Ro covered for Zee showing off his strength. "It's dead wood, very dry and easy to break."

            Zee tied one end of the cord to the branch, and the other to the top of the net. He carefully analyzed the tree branch he was aiming for, then threw the small branch with the string attached to it up and over the branch. As the small branch came falling back to the ground, it brought the net up. Zee hurried over to the other side where he grabbed the end of the string, and began to pull the net the rest of the way up. He lowered it enough so that it surrounded the net hammock. "Ro, climb up and tie this off," he told her.

            He gave her a boost up onto the net and she tied off the cord as high as she could reach. "Should I cut the end?" she asked.

            "Go ahead," Mandy told her, passing her a pocket knife.

            Ro cut off the extra cord and gave the rest to Mandy . The mosquito net was a beautiful dark blue color, but what Ro really liked about it, was how it looked like the canopy for a royal princess's bed.

            The tent had finished deflating by now, so Zee conveniently placed it under his dream catcher's net. "We can store our stuff in here," he announced. In hindsight, the small tent would have been better, but that was after he knew they wouldn't be sleeping in this one.

            "We've got ten minutes before we need to start walking to the mess hall," Mandy informed them. It was just enough time for Zee to start tying knots in the left over rope to make a ladder so Ro could get up without his help.

            When he'd finished, they quickly threw their sleeping bags on the top of their net, then started walking with Mandy to the mess hall. They were one of the last people to arrive, as they had to walk the furthest distance. The counselors had already begun to explain how to get food. Each site would be called in a specific order. That order was usually determined by which site was the cleanest.  Then they should pick up a plate, then go along the food line. There were chefs to serve them what food they wanted, and then to pick up their silverware, and a glass if they had a free hand. Then, they were required to put their dishes in a stack by the kitchen to be washes.

            "They used to have the campsite that was messiest clean the dishes, but now everyone takes a turn," Mandy explained.

            "I paid money for this, and they're making me wash my own dishes?" Ro asked.

            "There's just too many for the chefs to keep up with. At least we don't have to help cook, though." If they did, Ro would be worried that the mean girl from Redwood would spit in her food.

            For now, the counselors weren't calling people into the kitchen by campsite, but were letting people come in and get food as soon as they got in line. "If you want to save us a table, we're going to wait in line," Ro said to Zee.

            "She's not eating?"

            "Zee ate before we came, and said she wasn't hungry," Ro explained. She was now fathoming how hard it was going to be to hide the fact that Zee didn't eat at all. Seven days in a week, three meals in a day. That would mean she had to think of 21 excuses! Someone was bound to get suspicious… She'd have to talk about it with Zee, and see what he thought they should do.

            The line moved quickly, despite its long length. Zee smiled when they sat down with their plates of food. For being camp food, it was delicious. These cooks deserved their salaries, or more!  Tonight, the cooks would be doing the dishes, because assignments hadn't been made. Then, everyone was sent back to their camp sites for orientation. Ro liked their counselor a lot. She had a very pleasing attitude, and wasn't trying to do the thing where she demanded everyone's respect or attention. She was the kind of person, just for not asking for it, made everyone want to give it to her.  And, she was funny. Her name was Jennifer.

            "…Now for those horrific things we call 'rules'," Jennifer said over the small crackles of the campfire. "Number one rule on the 'Things we counselors thought up of to ruin your entire camp experience', is that you're required to travel in pairs whenever you leave this campsite."

            "Even to the bathroom?" a girl asked.

            "Of course to the bathroom! It's not like when you're not at camp you go to the bathroom by yourself anyway!" she joked. She then began to put on a comedy stand up show, "Isn't it funny whenever you're out with your friends, and you need to go to the bathroom, you always ask for someone to go with you? 'I'm going to the bathroom, want to come?' Come on, who honestly wants to go to the bathroom with you? Bathrooms are gross, dirty, disgusting places, and should be avoided. Why would anyone willingly want to accompany someone to one if they didn't need to use it themselves? It's not like the bathroom doors weigh forty pounds and you need someone else to help you open it! It makes no sense, but we do it anyway!! The most ironic thing though is, now when you get to camp you're all like, 'No, I don't want anyone to come with me! I'm a big girl! I can go by myself!' We know you can, and we know the chances of you tripping splitting your head open and having to go to the hospital are a million to one. But I'm not about to give up my new car because your parents decide to sue me because you can't walk without tripping over your own two feet, and you didn't have a buddy with you like I told you! So, yes, you must have a buddy!"

            "What if we can't find anyone to go with us? Can we ask with you?" another younger girl asked. Ro was beginning to notice the age differences in the entire group. She guessed that there were girls as young as        12, and as old as 17. When they were 18, they probably became counselors. 

            "As long as it's not between 11 at night and six in the morning," Jennifer replied.  "Between those hours you won't find your nice sweet counselor, but a soulless goddess who will bite your head off just for disturbing her slumber." Giggles spread through the group. "If you ABSOLUTELY can't find anyone else, because either they've been turned into vampires, or were eaten by a bear chances are by the time you get to my tent you won't need to go anymore. The easiest way to prevent this problem is to not drink so much water before you go to bed!"

When the laughter died down the counselor continued, "If you go on any trails you're to let me know which ones they are, and when you'll be back. You're not to go sneaking over to the boy's camp in the middle of the night—unless you bring me back a really hot one with you. And by hot, I mean Adam Heat hot. After ten o' clock, you're not to leave your tent unless you're going to the bathroom. And lastly, I don't want to hear about any of you girls causing trouble between any of the other campsites."

            "What if they're picking on us?" another girl asked. Ro suspected that she must have had a brush with the Redwood girls.

            "Then I want you to clean their clock, and if you're not big enough to do it by yourself or you're outnumbered, come back here and tell us, and we'll go and take care of them—But you didn't hear that from me. I'll repeat what I said, I don't want to _hear_ about it, which means that make sure whatever you do, news of it doesn't reach my ears. No, seriously, if you're having a problem with another camper, you should first alert one of the counselors, and if we can't fix it and the problem persists, then we'll call your parents and bring them into this."

            Ro thought sadly, "How could she call my parents? I don't even know where they are. Who would they call instead? Casey?" She doubted that he'd get mad at her if she stepped out of line a little bit, especially for a noble cause.

            Jennifer went over the rest of the rules. After the rules, she went over the schedule for tomorrow, and practically for the rest of the week. Wake up call was at seven o' clock, and the morning flag ceremony was at eight. Then breakfast would be served. The order line up depended on a competition between the counselors. What that competition was, would be decided in the morning. Then there was the educational part of camp where they'd learn new things regarding to camping and nature. Following that was lunch, and then free time. During free time they could do arts and crafts, swim, canoe, hike, or whatever they wanted. Ro thought that this might be the best time to sneak over and visit Bucky. Then there was dinner, evening camp clean up and a fireside hour with all of the campsites. Then everyone was to return to their campsite for a short meeting with their counselor. After that, they had an hour and a half to take a shower and get ready for bed. This was the general set up for the week.

            "Jennifer is the best counselor, I'm glad we have her this year," Mandy said as they were heading to the showers to get ready for bed. "The counselors take turns with different sites every year. One thing I really like about Jennifer, though, is that she refuses to ever be a counselor for Redwood."

            Ro smiled. She really liked Jennifer now. But a voice in the back of her head kept telling her not to become attached to anyone here. In the morning, she might find herself unexpectedly running away from the feds, leaving them, all behind.

            "Oh no!" Mandy pouted when they got to the building with all of the showers in it.

            "What's wrong?" Zee asked.

            "They're all taken!"

            "Can't we just wait for them to open up?" Ro asked.

"It's the Redwood girls. They ignore the 15 minute shower rule, and

always use up the hot water!"

"How can you tell it's them?" Ro asked.

"They all have identical towels," Zee commented. All of the towels hanging over the shower doors were the same style and color.

The thought of taking a cold shower rather than a hot, or warm one, sent shivers up Ro's spine. "I'll just take one in the morning," Ro said. She was used to taking both evening and morning showers. It didn't really matter to her when she took one, as long as she took one within 24 hours on a regular basis.

            "You see, you may do that when you're not at camp, but here it's necessary to take one at night. During the day you become absolutely filthy from the dirt in the air and on the ground, so it's pointless to take one in the morning. But if you take one at night, then you at least get the feeling of sleeping in a clean sleeping bag."

            "Are there any other showers here besides these ones?" Ro asked.

            "It's about a seven minute walk… They're kind of out of the way…"

            "If there's a chance that they'll have hot water, I'm for it."

            "Should we tell someone where we're going?" Zee asked.

            "We won't be going that far. Don't worry about it," Mandy insisted.

            The showers were a little out of the way, which is why no one seemed to be waiting by them.  "Most people don't know about these unless they've been here before. But as they're near the group campfire site, which everyone will be at tomorrow, they'll be discovered and we might not have them to ourselves after that."

"We'll have to think of something else to do for tomorrow then," Ro said.

The water was still warm for these showers. It felt very relaxing, and Ro enjoyed every minute of it. Zee shut himself in one of the shower stalls, and turned on the cold water to make it sound like he was taking a shower himself. He continuously listened for the sound of anyone approaching. After spending about five minutes with the water running, he turned it off, and changed his holomorph appearance into his pajama outfit. Just for a personal touch, he made his hair look wet, and his face a little pinker. He then waited for Ro and Mandy to finish showering. It felt strange to be wearing a pair of fake pajamas. He'd never had to wear them before. This might be the first instance where he would be sleeping around a group of people. Usually at night, he would turn off his hologram, rather than putting on this new one. He'd like to ask Ro if the design he'd chosen was appropriate as he'd never picked out a hologram for this before. The fabric of his pajamas was dark blue with stars and moons all over it. But, as he'd based the design from something he'd seen in a department store, he couldn't be too far off.

"Nice jimmies," Ro commented as she came out of the shower stall. Mandy should be coming out shortly as well as both of them had turned off the shower at about the same time.

"Oh, those are cute!" Mandy commented, squeezing the extra water out of her hair onto the floor, then throwing it behind her shoulder. "Ready to head back?"

"Yeah, we're ready," Ro said.

As they walked back to their campsite they noticed that the towels were still hanging over the same stall doors, and the same people were still impatiently waiting outside of them. "Those poor girls," Mandy sighed.

"Someone should teach them a lesson," Ro commented.

"Someone…" Mandy said loftily. "Since this is the last year I'll be coming to this camp, I might as well have a little fun…"

Zee had heard the same manipulative tone used by Ro in past instances. Usually following such a statement they would commit some rebellious, or evil act.  He didn't like the sound of it, but kept his mouth shut, as Ro's curiosity seemed queried. "Got something in mind?" she asked.

Mandy bit her lower lip. Zee could picture her "shoulder angels" giving her the pros and cons of the situation. The devilish angel must have run her pitchfork through the good angel, because without saying a word, Mandy turned around and ran back to the showers.

"Come on!" Ro said, excited. She could tell something good was about to happen.

Mandy went up to the first stall door, and removed the towel from where it was hanging on the door. The girl inside of the shower was singing too loudly to notice, and obviously didn't notice that her towel was being removed. Mandy tossed the towel to Ro.

Ro tried to keep herself from laughing at her evil deed, and, quickly folded the towel and hid it behind her back. But Mandy didn't stop there, she removed the small ring she was wearing on her finger, and used it to unlock the cheap lock on the shower stall door. The stalls were designed so that there was a small changing stall between the actual shower, which had its own separate curtain. Very carefully, Mandy opened the door and reached for the clothing that was carelessly laid out on the bench in the changing area. She quickly snatched the clothing before the draft from the open door alerted the person in the shower that something was going on. Mandy tossed these clothes to Ro, who was desperately trying not to laugh. The people waiting in line, watched, wondering what these strangers were doing, and if they should help or just stand there quietly.

            Ro handed the clothes to Zee so that he could hold them, as Mandy was now handing her the next girl's towel and clothes. Ro was on the verge of tears from trying not to laugh. The people in the line seemed to have caught onto the idea, and after having waited so long for a shower already, didn't feel obligated to turn these people in for their egregious acts, but actually assisted by carefully removing the towels from the shower doors and hiding them among their own possessions. When Mandy had removed the first one, she quickly hurried over to Ro, clothes and towel in arm, and despite how it was against the rules whispered, "Run!"

            They began to hurry away from the scene of the crime, while the rest of the girls who had been waiting for a shower, dispersed as they didn't to be suspects for when the girls came out of the showers and found that they had nothing to cover themselves up with.  Everyone around the shower area vanished rather quickly. After another minute the Redwood girl had either decided she was too pruny or the water had gone cold and she turned off the water. A shrill scream followed, which sounded throughout the entire camp followed by an angry cry, "WHERE ARE MY CLOTHES!"

            It was now that Ro and Mandy burst into tears of laughter. Zee was rather quiet. He knew that Ro was aware that what they'd done was mean, but the girls had been rude to them earlier… He didn't want to disappoint Ro's fun by spoiling their prank either, by mentioning what the possible consequences might be either. "Are we going to give them back?" he asked. It seemed a happy medium between his two worries.

            "Oh yes… In the sweetest way possible…" Mandy smiled. "Just stick them in my tent, and I'll take care of the rest."

            "What about the other girls who helped out?"

            "Don't worry about them. All will be well."

            "Are we going to get in trouble for this?" Zee asked next. While he'd been trying to not let such worries spoil this moment, the words just seemed to pop out.

            "Course not. I'm even going to let Jennifer know."

            While he couldn't see how letting Jennifer know be beneficial, it seemed that Mandy would be taking the blame, as she'd be the one turning herself in. Mandy unzipped the door to her tent so Zee and Ro could throw the towels inside. Peering inside of her tent, Ro noticed something strange about Mandy's bed. "What's that under your sleeping bag?" Ro asked.

It appeared to be a large 3x 6 foot grid of toilet paper rolls. "It's my bed until I make a TP run with them. Then I've got an inflatable mattress to use when these are gone," Mandy smirked. "Well, I'm going to go talk to Jennifer, so goodnight and I'll see you in the morning!" Mandy said, then headed towards Jennifer's tent.

            "I guess we should get some sleep as well," Ro said.

            Zee had to jump abnormally (but inconspicuously) high to reach the knot ladder down. He would have rather have extended his arms to reach it, but that definitely would have been a giveaway of his true character. Ro climbed up the rope while Zee held it steady on the ground . He then climbed up, and pulled it up after him so no one could follow. "I'm not going to roll off this thing in the middle of the night," Ro commented.

            "I'll be here to make sure you're safe." Zee said, crawling into his sleeping bag. He really would have prepared just to create one out of a hologram.

            "Thanks, Zee," Ro said, snuggling into her own sleeping bag next to his.

 "It's so beautiful," Ro commented, gazing up at the stars above between the tree tops. While things were still a little noisy as the girls in the tents were excited because it was their first day, the peaceful melody of the occasional cricket chirps and frogs at the lake could be heard over their gossiping.  While she was sure that she'd hate those sounds by the end of the week, at the moment, they were wonderful.

 While he was tempted to take of his hologram as it was dark and no one could see him with the lights off, he wasn't going to take that risk. It wouldn't hurt to keep his hologram on for a week straight, and he could do without fully devoting himself to a full charge for a week. Watching over Ro was more important than running at 100% optimum capacity rather than 98%.  Zee remained awake during the entire night. It wasn't boring, as Ro had often thought that it would be for him, but was very peaceful. After scanning the area for anything unusual his gaze would always return to Ro's small figure, sleeping beside him. The night air was warm, so he didn't have to worry about her being cold. It was nice.

Everything was absolutely silent until three in the morning. He could hear the sounds of twigs breaking in the distance. It wasn't like the usually small animal running through the forest or in the tree tops. It was something heavier. Someone was coming. He sat up slightly to get a better look at who it was with his night vision. The person had their flashlight turned off, no wait, it was more than one person.  They obviously were doing something covert, and didn't want to wake anyone up with their light. They definitely weren't going to the bathroom as it was in the other direction. Maybe they were trying to sneak through and onto the boy's camp? He recognized the face of one of the girls as being from the Redwood camp. He debated whether he should wake Ro up, or just wait and see what happened.

Then, he heard the sounds of another pair of footsteps. These were coming from somewhere in side the camp. They were more carefully placed, and much quieter. This second person wasn't making the mistake of letting a couple of quiet giggles escape. Zee could see her hiding behind the trunk of a tree. It was their counselor, Jennifer! He shook Ro slightly to wake her. Surely Ro would want a part of this.

"Ro, Ro, wake up," he said, holding his hand over her mouth. He didn't want her to break the silence by saying something really loudly when she woke up. She opened her eyes slowly, and was going to scream, except that she realized it was Zee who was covering her mouth. She was used to waking up suddenly, but it was not pleasant to find yourself silenced when you did wake up. "Look, over there," he whispered.

Ro looked out over the camp. She couldn't see anything. Her eyes were taking too long to adjust. Then, suddenly, a bright light turned on, illuminating the girls from the Redwood site. "Going somewhere, ladies?" Jennifer asked in a stern voice. Ro could barely hear what she was saying, but Zee could hear it well enough to relay to her what was going on.

"We were just going to the bathroom," one of the girls tried to lie.

"I have one tattoo, and it's not "STUPID" and it's not on my forehead, so don't try to play me like it is. The bathroom is the other direction, and you're running around with your lights off."

"Go back to your tents!" Jennifer scolded them. "I'll be having a chat with your counselor tomorrow."

"But someone stole our towels and clothes!" they protested.

"I am not your mother. It is not my responsibility to look after your stuff. It's unfortunate that you've lost something, but sneaking around in the middle of the night is not the answer! Now get back to bed! Curfew was five hours ago!"

The girls turned on their lights, and grumbling, turned around and went back. Jennifer stood there, watching them until they were out of sight before turning off her light, and returning to her tent."

"She really told them off!" Ro whispered.

"Jennifer certainly is a light sleeper," Zee commented.

"Mandy would love to hear what happened the next morning…" Ro thought, as she drifted back to sleep.


	3. Day 2

She awoke the next morning, feeling better than ever. This floating net was really comfortable to sleep on. "Good morning," Zee said, already dressed. As soon as the first people had begun to stir, he'd climbed down and had changed his hologram in the privacy of their tent, then had climbed back up to wait for Ro to awaken.

While in other instances, she might have wanted to go back to sleep, right now she really just wanted to stay in her sleeping back to keep warm. The morning coolness hadn't dissipated yet, so the temperature outside of her sleeping bag was not warm enough to make her want to leave it. But, as she knew that she'd have to get up sooner or later, she might as well do it now. Ro sat up in her sleeping bag, and felt her face. She didn't feel like anyone had drawn on her with a black marker while she was asleep. But why was she even worrying? Zee had stayed up all night… She was sure of this as he'd woken her up when those girls had tried to sneak into the campsite.

"Flag ceremony is in an hour," Zee informed her.

Ro crawled out of her sleeping bag, then neatly folded it then crawled down the rope ladder, after Zee had descended it. She spent the morning getting ready. She saw Mandy around, but didn't have a chance to tell her about what had happened last night. Eventually though, she'd be sure to let her know about it. Ro even saw Jennifer around the campsite, giving directions and letting people know how much time was left. She certainly didn't look like she had gotten up in the middle of the night, or that she was really that light of a sleeper, especially considering what she'd said last night about waking her up to go to the bathroom.

After the hour was up, the campers started making their way to the flag circle. "This dust is horrific!!" Ro said, covering her mouth, as she tried not to choke on the dust that was being kicked up by the girls ahead of them.

"Don't scuff your feet when you walk!" Mandy shouted over the heads of the girls. Several of the girls, who hadn't even realized they were kicking up dirt, stopped, and the dust died down.

            "Thanks," Ro said.

            "Hey, there's plenty of dirt in our clothes and hair, we don't need it in our lungs."

            "Mandy, did you know that last night, some girls from the Redwood camp tried to sneak into our campsite?" Ro brought the subject up.

            "I know. Jennifer told me this morning."

            "Oh," Ro said, a little sad that they weren't the first to get to tell the story.

            "The only reason they came over was because we took their towels," Zee said quietly. "Does that mean we're going to be blamed?"

            "Of course not!" Mandy brushed the subject off. Zee still had the feeling that they were going to get in trouble though. "But I can't wait to get to the flag ceremony!" Mandy added, sounding rather excited.

            "Why's that?"

            "You'll see!"

            When they got to the flag circle, there was a lot of chatter and giggles going around between the girls. "Is that what I think it is?" Ro asked, staring up at the flag pole. On the main flag pole was the towels of the girls, including the ones that Mandy hadn't taken. On the smaller flag poles on the right and left of the main one, were the girls' clothing. They hung there, on display for everyone to see, and laugh at. The girls from Redwood were standing by the flag poles, with extremely angry expressions on their faces, and were loudly arguing with the camp director. But the camp director was not going to lower their items. Now, Ro was curious. Just what was going on?

            After everyone had arrived, the camp director called for silence among the large group. "Now, as several of you may have noticed, it is not the U.S. flag that is currently being displayed on our flag pole!" Several giggles spread through the group, so the director had to wait for it to be quiet again. Ro couldn't help but wondering why these people couldn't keep from laughing. "In accordance with Camp Hidden Fall's Unofficial Rule Book as set by the counselors and campers of old,  'Anyone who is caught taking more than a 15 minutes shower, when more than three people are waiting in line, is fairly subject to having their towel stolen, if not properly guarded.' In accordance with the extension of that rule, 'anyone who would like to reclaim their towel must complete a task or act, of the committee of counselors' choosing.'"  
            Ro noted that she didn't mention anything about the clothes. At this point in time, all of the counselors gathered together in a small huddle.  After about a minute, the counselors broke apart, and Jennifer, announced their task.  "It is decided, by the counselors' committee, that the girls whose towels these belong to, will have to write their name, in cursive, in the air, with their BUTTS, as compensation for the return of their towels!"

            The roar of laughter was deafening. Ro couldn't help but laugh herself. What humiliation! She looked at the Redwood girls. They had only taken the towels from six of them, but the whole group was looking absolutely malevolent and sour. Their counselor was looking sympathetically at them, but was unable to do anything about it.

            The director went up to the flag pole, and began to lower the towels. The first girl stepped up to reclaim hers. Ro had no idea how the girl had known that it was her towel as they all looked the same to her. The girl turned around, rather stiffly, and bent over, then began to spell her name. "I can't believe this," Ro said, laughing, turning her head to the side. For some reason, it felt wrong just to be watching this. Everyone around her was laughing still. "Cynthia," Zee said the girl's name. The blonde girl from yesterday was named Cynthia.

            While he was watching each girl, paying attention to their name, he was rather indifferent to the ordeal. One girl came up, and spelled her name, "Al."

            "Unless, you want use to all start calling you 'Al', you'd better spell the whole thing out!" the director commented. So she finished her name, "Alexandria."

But what about their clothes? The camp director seemed to be aware of this, as after the girls had reclaimed their towels, her next comment was, "Now, it seems that more than these girls' towels was stolen."

Everyone had had their laughs as the girls had written their names, so there was no interrupting silence. "Now, due to privacy issues, and the fact that no one wants to see any full moons that aren't in the sky, the counselor's committee has decided that taking clothes is not appropriate for any reason," the director said, then turned towards the Redwood girls, "and revenge definitely counts as a reason," she added. The director then began to look around at all of the girls gathered around the flag pole area with a stern expression on her face. It seemed like she was trying to read into their souls to find out which of them committed the evil deed. Ro specifically tried to avoid her gaze, without looking like she was trying to. Luckily the director did not glance in her direction for too long.

Zee could just sense that they were going to get in trouble now. The camp director wasn't looking too happy right now. He looked over at Ro. She seemed a little worried. Mandy, however, looked smug. She didn't appear to be worried at all!

 The Redwood girls seemed to be enjoying the fact that everyone was feeling rather uncomfortable under the director's gaze. They were just waiting for her to announce the punishment for the girls who had taken their clothes. However, the director seemed to be more interested in following a different course of action. "Go take down your clothes so we can put the flag up and go have breakfast." She told them. Her tone was a little sympathetic, but with a definite hint of impatience.

 "That's it?" Cynthia declared, outraged. The director hadn't mentioned anything about a punishment for those girls who had taken their clothes.

The director looked at Cynthia indifferently. "You want to sing and dance for your clothes then?" she asked, mildly curious as to here what her complaint was.

"Aren't you going to punish the girls who took our stuff?"

"Sorry girls, but first of all, unless the people or person who took your clothes confesses, we don't know who to punish. And secondly, this rule wasn't expressed prior to the incident so it would be unfair to institute a punishment."

"Doesn't Jennifer know we took the clothes? As well as the other girls who saw us?" Ro whispered to Mandy.

"Jennifer isn't the type to turn us in, and no one else wants to get in trouble either, so our secret is safe."

"I hope so," Zee commented. While being in trouble with the law was a common thing for him and Ro, he hadn't become desensitized to it. The law in this case, was of common courtesy and playing fair.

The Redwood girls were absolutely appalled and crimson with rage. How dare this director let them get away with this act unpunished!   Once they found out who was responsible, they would take the matter into their own hands, and revenge would be satisfied. They wouldn't steal their clothes, as the director had warned them, but would find some other way to satisfy their vindictive nature.

The flag ceremony was very short. Mandy told Ro and Zee that the only reason they had the flag ceremony, besides out of respect for their country, was because of "certification." At the late night fireside, small necklaces would be handed out to each person. Each time you did an activity, you'd get a bead for the necklace, or if you learned something new in the education hour, you'd get a bead. It was a check-off system, and a mini-contest to see who had the most beads by the end of camp.  If a girl participated in the flag ceremony she could get a bead to add onto her necklace.

"Count us out. There's no way we could win against those girls who've been saving their beads up all these year, " Ro declined.

"It restarts every year, so that doesn't matter. Also, some people don't know how to participate in a flag ceremony so they don't get a bead for it, but they might do something like archery instead."

"Would they have the opportunity to learn how if they wanted to?" Zee asked.

"Yeah, they teach you during free time. But like anyone really wants to spend their free time doing that… So it's mostly the same people every year who do it."

Once that was over, everyone made their way over to the mess hall and sat down. The had to wait for their counselors to have their small competition to decide which site got to get in line first. The competition was a watermelon seed spitting contest. Earlier this morning, or last night, someone had drawn a forty foot line and marked off one foot increments. The watermelon had already been sliced and was waiting. One slice, for every counselor. They had five tries to spit a watermelon seed as far as possible. The furthest distance would be recorded, then the seeds would be swept away before the next counselor tried.

"That is so gross, yes interesting," Ro commented.

While Jennifer tried very hard, she couldn't get her seeds past the twenty-five foot mark, and ended up getting fourth place out of the seven counselors. But it wasn't like there was a shortage of food, and whoever was last didn't get the same selection as whoever was first.

"So why didn't you tell us that taking the towels was an official rule?" Ro asked over breakfast. It was the traditional pancake and eggs and hash brown-type breakfast. It was just as delicious as yesterday's dinner. Ro noticed that Zee had a plate in front of him with food on it. His hologram was so real in appearance that she couldn't tell if he'd actually picked up a real plate, or if he was only faking it. She mentally scolded herself for not having brought the subject up last night like she'd been meaning to. She'd find out over breakfast if it was real or not, by seeing if he pushed food around his plate to make it look like he was eating, or if one of his hands appeared to be super-glued to the plate and he was lifting forks of "food" up to his mouth, then having the food disappear, and come out of his mouth as an empty fork.

Mandy replied, "Some of them might have, if they've come here before. Probably not though. No one ever is daring enough to go through with the actual act, even if they're tired of waiting for the shower… And I didn't bother to say anything because that takes all of the fun out of it!"

Zee began to process over the fact that Ro and Mandy had both used the word "fun" to describe a risky situation. "Is there a copy of the rulebook we could look at?" Zee asked. He didn't want to get caught not knowing any of the other rules.

            "It's the unofficial rule book, so it's not written anywhere. The rules are passed down by word of mouth from camper to camper every year."

            "Then how do you remember everything?"

            "You don't. The director has been around for several years, though. I think she might actually write down the rules we make up somewhere, but no one really cares. The punishments are always some simple stupid act like the girls had to do today. It's nothing too serious, and it's always in good fun.

Now she was using the word "fun" in a different context, and it had a whole new meaning… Was he to glean from this that being mean was fun?

"Some of the rules are more common than others… Like the 'No elbows on the table rule.' Everyone remembers that one."

When she mentioned "no elbows on the table," both Ro and Zee had looked down to see if they were using polite manners or not. Luckily, subconsciously, both of them had remembered, so they didn't have their elbows on the table. Ro also noticed that neither of Zee's hands were touching his plate; he was using the 'food pusher' method.

"What happens if you do have your elbows on the table?" Ro asked.

"You have to sing a song, or run around the table acting like a barnyard animal."

"Fun," Ro sighed sarcastically. Zee thought his circuits would overload. She looked over at the Redwood girls. They were all seated at one table, and weren't mixing in with any of the other sites. At their table, they had some girls from Buckeye, Spruce, and Evergreen. "They're certainly eyeing every one suspiciously," Ro commented,"I don't think they thought that their 'sky-writing' demonstration was very fun. I'll bet they're plotting something."

"They're wondering who did it. And the best part is, they'll never know unless we tell them."

"But last night… they came to our camp," Zee pointed out.

"Jennifer told me that they'd been hitting all of the campsites. Their counselor is unhappy with them, but she's not going to enforce anything. Ugh… Marianne always lets them get away with that kind of thing."

"Marianne?"

"Redwood's counselor," Mandy informed Zee. "Don't worry about them, though. I doubt they have enough brain cells to think of anything worth worrying about. Besides, I've got enough TP to get them back if they do something, in addition to several other pranks I could choose to play on them rather then on the boys across the lake."

Ro and Zee were both interested, as Bucky was across the lake. Maybe they could coordinate a time when the could both sneak over there? "You're going to play pranks on the boys?" Ro asked.

"Shhh," Mandy quieted Ro down.  "You can get in big trouble if you're caught so it's best not to speak about it too loudly or too much. But, yes. I do have some tricks up my sleeves."

"When are you planning on going over there?" Zee asked.

"Always at night. There's too many people out and about during the day."

Zee thought that it would be best to go over during the day rather than to wake Bucky up in the middle of the night. Luckily for him, though, he didn't have to worry about getting caught, as he could always holomorph and disguise himself as a counselor or another camper.

"We'll see how things turn out, because we've been meaning to go over there," Ro casually said. She'd have to talk to Zee about what he thought of the idea of going over together, or whether they should try to go over there during free time in the middle of the day or something else.

When breakfast was over they got up to put their dishes into be washed. Zee appeared to have a lot of leftover food to scrape into the trashcan first, though, or was it an excuse for him to make his plate disappear? Sycamore was in charge of clean up for this meal.  Mandy went over to look at the schedule of clean up for the rest of the week with Ro. "We have breakfast cleanup tomorrow, lunch the fifth day here, then dinner on the last night here. Ugh… having to clean up after dinner on the last night is always the worst," Mandy sighed.

"Why is clean up on the last day bad?" Ro asked.

"Well, if there's ever going to be a food fight. It will be on that day. And we'll have to clean it up."

"Food fights involve everyone, so shouldn't everyone pitch in?"

"They try to make people, but it usually doesn't happen."

On the way back to their campsite, Ro lagged behind, letting Mandy get a head of them a couple of paces. She wanted to have a short, private word with Zee about the food situation before they got back to camp. "Nice job with the plate of food," she smirked. "But you forgot your drink."

"I didn't take one because then it would be apparent that the water level in the cup wasn't going down."

"Why not take a canteen then, or some other container that you can't see into? I know you bought one. I saw it when I was loading the stuff into the car right after you bought it. "

It was a good idea. Ro always seemed to come up with good, sensible ideas. Why couldn't he see something this simple? "I'll remember to bring it with me for lunch," he replied.

At this time, Mandy realized that they'd fallen behind, and stopped ahead on the path for them to catch up. They continued walking back to the campsite as a group.

As scheduled, the girls return to their campsites for a quick morning clean-up before their educational instruction. Jennifer was barking orders left and right. Whoever had the cleanest campsite would be first in line for lunch, and dinner. Ro thought that this first in line thing was highly overrated.

Everyone had to have their sleeping bags rolled neatly up and tucked away, all of their personal belongings neatly packed into their bags. Their shoes should be neatly placed beside their tent door if they were not wearing them. There was to be no litter on the ground, and nothing that anyone could trip over. There had to be a full bucket of water beside their camp fire, and a bucket of ashes, even if the fire wasn't lit. Everything had to be perfect in only a half or before the inspector, or the camp director, came by.

When the camp director came by, she was rather impressed with the cleanliness of their camp site. She especially liked what Zee had created in between the four trees. She commended him on having not used any nails, or anything harmful to the trees. Ro was just glad that she wasn't going to tell them to take it down because it might possibly be a safety hazard. There were only some minor comments that she wrote down on her clipboard, but nothing serious like having an unsafe fire circle or a cord that someone could trip over. After she left, Jennifer began to assemble the materials she'd need to teach the lesson, and people began to gather the supplies that she told them they'd need. Because Zee had gone shopping, they were all set.

"The first thing that we're going to do today is learn how to make a heat source for cooking or warmth, and we'll also learn the old fashioned techniques on how to make fire," Jennifer started.

She then produced a fuel rod from a box. It was a long tube about two inches in diameter and a foot long. She held the stick in her hands, then broke it in half like a pencil and quickly set it on the ground. With in a few seconds it began to radiate heat that could be felt rising in the air, by everyone standing around it. "The fuel rod is good for four hours. And as long as you're not trying to cook a pot roast or a turkey, this should be long enough for you to warm up your prepackaged dinner," Mandy informed the group. "Now, fuel rods come in smaller and bigger sizes. You use the big ones when you want a lot of heat, and to last for a long time. You use the smaller ones to do the opposite. End of lecture. –Now, onto the fun part. Let's learn how to make fire! "she said, excitedly, then produced a lighter from her pocket, and lit it. "See? Fire. Now, you've all got that requirement signed off. I'll give you your beads at the end of the hour."

"But what if we don't have a lighter?" one of the girls asked. "How would you start a fire then?"

"If you don't have a lighter with you, I assure you, you're not going to have the second item which can be used to make fire, which is a book of matches. But let's pretend that all the smokers around you forgot their lighter, and all you have is matches. Then you are faced with the problem that your match only lasts for a few seconds. You should already have a fire pit set up with wood and kindling in it first. Otherwise, your match will burn up, and you'll be right where you started, only your finger and thumb will be burned. For now, we're going to learn how to start a fire in a variety of ways, in case you don't have a lighter, or matches."

            Jennifer then began to go over several other ways to start a fire. She invited one girl to come up and to start a fire in a leaf pile, using a magnifying glass, "And if you don't have a magnifying glass, find someone who has really bad eyesight, and borrow their glasses." She also had someone start a fire using batteries and steel wool! Even this surprised Ro as she'd thought that she already knew how to make a fire in almost every possible way. Jennifer even showed them how to strike a match when they'd lost the match box. Apparently, the zipper on a pair of jeans worked to light matches as well. "But always strike it down because you don't want to catch your shirt on fire," she'd told them.  

After everyone had learned to start a fire, Jennifer was running around, telling the younger girls not to set the forest on fire by playing around with burning leaves and sticks, and teaching them how to properly put out a fire.  She then demonstrated the several types of fires, such as the log cabin, tepee, pit, and star formation set up and what their different purposes were. Fires could be used for cooking, heat, or for long duration. Jennifer covered everything in a very efficient manner, and were done within a half  hour.

"I guess we can get ahead on tomorrow's lesson: how to purify water. You can either boil it, or you can add a little chlorine to it. The directions are on the bottle, or on the package if you buy the tablet forms. But if you're bothering to carry chlorine around on you, you're packing too much. Now, while you're here at camp, we have clean water for you, so I wouldn't go making my own. If you put too much chlorine in you can get sick."

 Jennifer then looked over the rest of tomorrow's lesson. "We also have to cover the food pyramid…" she mumbled to herself, then asked, "Who doesn't know what the food pyramid is, and how to eat healthy?"

No one raised their hands, "Well, I guess we don't need to go over that. It seems like we're covered for tomorrow then."

As the hour time period was up, Jennifer dismissed the group to go and wash up before lunch.

Despite their hard effort to make their campsite the cleanest, after the points were tallied up, they were only second, having lost to Evergreen. It wasn't because Evergreen had a cleaner campsite, but because they'd improved their campsite by building their own individual campsite flag pole. They were not just cleaning up, but improving on it. Therefore, the camp director had found it appropriate that she give them more than the previously total amount of points.

"Next time. Next time it will be ours," Jennifer was muttering, her fist clenched, in front of her and her shoulders quivering.  She had an aura around her like that of knight, bruised and broken, but with a hidden power that she would unleash then wield it in her fight for the honor of her lord.  While being first in line wasn't Ro's top priority, because Jennifer seemed to be making such a big deal out of it, her enthusiasm was spreading throughout her campers in a positive manner.

            They waited at their table until they would be called to get their food. One thing that was nice about being earlier in the line to get food was that you got to eat sooner, which would be nice if you were starving of hunger. However, she hadn't worked herself up to a big appetite at this place yet, so that wasn't an issue.

            After lunch was the arts and crafts hour, or free time. However, it didn't seem like they'd be getting the opportunity to go see Bucky at this instant. While there was no way that Jennifer could force them to surrender their free time into cleaning up their campsite, she was doing a very good job at making people feel obligated to stay, just by her own determination. "Maybe we could just put in an hour of help, then go and sneak over in the second hour before dinner?" Ro suggested quietly to Zee once they were back at their campsite.

            "It doesn't give us much time, but it does seem like we do need to contribute in some way," he agreed.

            Everyone was seated around the unlit campfire in their own portable lawn and camping chairs. They were stuck with the task of coming up with an improvement project that was better than the flagpole Evergreen had come up with. Also, as Evergreen wouldn't be able to use the same idea twice, they'd undoubtedly be starting a new project as well. It irritated Jennifer how they could have got their act together that quickly to get a flag pole up so easily. Their counselor must have been planning it from the first day of camp.  Most likely she already had a dead tree picked out to be felled, and already had the approval of the camp director that the tree was a fire hazard so it was okay for it to be removed. It would be a simple matter of cutting off the small branches, and digging a hold then erecting it. Once Jennifer thought about it, she was sure that this was preplanned. No one carried around an extra pulley with them, complete with mounting bracket. So, their counselor probably had several other ideas planned in advance for the rest of the week as well. Sneaky.

            Their brainstorming session was pretty pathetic. There were a lot of good ideas, but none that they had the materials for. Someone suggested making real benches out of branches, another person suggested birdhouses. Unfortunately, no one bothered to bring nails or a hammer as it wasn't on the list. Then someone came up with a plausible idea. "Why don't we start a forest restoration project?"

            Everyone seemed to agree that it was nobler in purpose than a private flag pole, so Jennifer began to make plans on how they could accomplish this.  For starters, Jennifer suggested that people go around in small groups or in pairs and collect loose trash up off of the forest floor into large garbage bags that she could supply them with. As they'd already cleaned up their campsite, they would have to carry the bags around with them while they went to various activities around the camp. "How embarrassing! Who wants to be seen as a trash picker?" Ro whispered to Zee.

"You don't like the idea?" he asked.

"It's not a bad idea, but, seriously. Do you want to carry around a bag of trash all day long?" Zee thought that it couldn't be much different than carrying around Ro's shopping bags all day long.

"But it would be an easy excuse to be dismissed early," he rationalized.

"Good point." Ro stopped whispering so the group could hear her, "So when can we get started?" she asked.

"I've got trash bags locked up in the campsite storage cabinet. We can start as soon as I get those out. You can take them with you to your other various activities," Jennifer suggested. "Well. No point in waiting. Let's get started!" Jennifer announced, getting up from her chair to head over to the cabinet with the trash bags in it.

Ro and Zee got in line. Mandy was somewhere in the back of the group, talking with some other girls. It didn't seem that they'd have to worry about having her too close by.

Ro and Zee picked up a garbage bag then started heading out towards the main road with it when Mandy called for them to stop, then hurried over toward them. "Great…" Ro thought a little irritated. She'd have to think of an excuse why they couldn't hang out with here right now.

"Some of us are going swimming. I thought I might let you know in case you wanted to come," she said once she got close to them.

"Thanks, but we were hoping to get some other things done today," Ro recited her planned answer.

"That's cool. But if you change your minds, we'll be at the lake," she replied. She didn't seem to feel snubbed in the least bit. Ro felt a little guilty for thinking that Mandy was going to be clingy and insist on coming with them.

"Come on, let's go," Ro said to Zee.  They began to walk along the road that headed toward the boy's camp, keeping a vigilant eye out for anyone following them, or any counselor who would make them turn around if they saw them coming.  When they got fairly close, Zee reached his arm out to stop Ro from walking, and pulled her off to the side. "What is it?" she asked. "Is someone  coming."

"There's a counselor from the boy's camp up ahead."

Ro tried to peer down the path, but she couldn't see anyone. This generally meant that the person was _really_ far ahead and Zee could only see them because of his robotic eyes. "What disguise method should we use this time?" she smirked.

Typically when they were running away from the feds or anyone for that matter, they used four main tactics to evade them. The first tactic was to run around a corner, or into a room or anywhere out of sight then to holomorph into another costume and act like nothing was wrong. This usually led their pursuer to believe that they were still running ahead of them, or that they'd gone down another corridor. However, the feds were getting smarter and had started using their holoviewers to check the rooms they ran into to make sure that they didn't do this, so it really only worked on anyone else but agents. However, no one was chasing them so this technique would be useless. Their second method would be to take the figure of someone else on the same side as the people who were pursuing them. If they pretended to be another police officer, generally they weren't suspected as being a target. Their third variation was deviated from the second one. They'd found that they could escape the feds by taking the place of another figure that they'd seen recently. This would usually work until the real person showed up. While these last two methods would work, apparently they would be using "alternative method #4".  Method #4 just consisted of holomorphing into a position of authority pretending to escort a delinquent.

"Ready?" Zee asked her. Ro quickly folded her trash bag as small as possible and shoved it into her pocket. Zee followed her example, and was going to place his in one of his storage compartments, except that Ro thought it'd be a lot simpler if she just held onto it. She shoved this in her pocket, then replied enthusiastically, "You bet!"

 Zee placed his hand on his shoulder, and began to grow in height while his hologram changed. Ro soon found that her clothes were taking a new shape and form as Zee's hologram began to cover her as well. She'd been turned into a young boy about thirteen years of age. Zee was none other than their own counselor, Jennifer.

"Let's do this," Ro said confidently. With Zee's firm hand on her shoulder, they stepped out back onto the road and began walking. While the counselor wouldn't be able to see them for a while, Zee still couldn't take his hand off of her shoulder, and, it would too awkward for them to be holding hands. It wasn't too bad, though; Zee looked like he was marching Ro back to her camp, rather than that he liked to rest his hand there for no particular reason.

After walking for another minute, Ro saw the counselor that Zee had seen earlier. He was sitting in a chair on the side of the road looking rather bored. Ro thought it pointless for him to be sitting there. Sure, he was guarding the road, but she was sure that if someone really wanted to sneak over they could just side track from the road for couple hundred feet and easily sneak by out of his gaze.  Then again, they had taken the main road, so if they didn't have these clever disguises he'd certainly have stopped them.

The counselor spotted them coming a fair distance away but didn't actually get up out of his chair until they were a couple of feet away. "What's going on here?" he asked. He glared at Ro. Since she was a boy, it could only mean that she was from his camp. The counselor immediately began to wonder how he'd managed to get by, then sure that he'd not come by him, figured that he might have gone the other way around the lake.

"Caught this one near the girl's showers," Zee said in Jennifer's exact voice. Ro put on a sheepish smile, trying not to look too guilty of the crime Zee was setting her up for.  "I found this on him," Zee said, producing a hologram of a small device with a lens on it in the palm of his hand. It looked like a small camera to Ro. Zee quickly pretended to put the device in his pocket before the counselor could ask to see it.

"What's your name?" the counselor asked Ro.

"He's been giving me a different name each time I asked him. I'm going to take him to the director and have him sent home if he keeps this game up," Zee said, to prevent Ro from having to speak in a fake boy's voice.

"I can take him there," the counselor offered.

"Oh, that isn't the least of it. I have reason to believe that he was sending digital feed to his computer over here with this camera. It appeared to have a wireless router on it…  He'll be taking me to his cabin, where I will be deleting any video footage that he might have taken," Zee said to the counselor, and then looked at Ro, "won't you," he said more strictly. If Ro didn't know that he was putting on an act, her knees would have been shaking because of the intimidating nature Zee had. As she thought about it, she didn't ever want to get on Jennifer's bad side. The way Zee made her eyebrows arc up in anger was nerve-wrecking. Zee continued speaking to the counselor, "As this footage is from the girl's shower room, I wouldn't have you or his counselor review it, if you know what I mean… And you'd be wise to show me exactly where you sent it to your hard drive," Zee said, glowering at Ro.

She couldn't see his glare because she was lowering her head in shame, or to prevent herself from laughing.  Zee never seemed to lie to anyone when she was with him, so she was wondering how he'd been able to come up with a lie like this one. It was absolutely hilarious, despite the fact that he'd turned her into a pervert. Then again, no one took showers in the day so there would be nothing to see anyway.

"Yes, well, the director is located on the far side of the camp. Just keep following this road and you'll get there. His cabin is "L"."

"Thank you very much," Zee said, then gruffly pushed Ro forward.

When the counselor was out of sight, Ro began laughing. It'd been so hard to hold it in for that small time! "You should have a business card," Ro teased him. "Zee- expert in prevarication, dissembling, and equivocational counseling."

"But I don't plan to take it up as a habit, so it's best that you save yourself the printing costs," he said seriously. He was using his own voice rather than Jennifer's voice. I felt very strange to be hearing it coming out of the mouth of a woman.

"Should we ditch these disguises?" Ro asked.

"Not yet, but I have an idea," he said, pulling her behind a large tree. There was no one around, so he was safe to take his arm off her shoulder. Her disguise disappeared while his still remained. He reached into his chest, and pulled out the holomorphic bracelet. "We probably should have used this earlier," he said handing it to Ro.  "But then again, I didn't think of it until we were talking with the counselor."

"What good would it have done? There were no boys at our camp to take a picture of!" Just as she said this, Zee began to shrink in size, and his clothes began to change into the boy's outfit that he'd used for Ro's hologram.

"Take a picture," he prompted her.

"Ah, I see," she said, holding up the bracelet. She then took a picture of Zee, with the bracelet. She now had her own individual hologram. Zee returned to his regular appearance. No one would look twice in his natural form in this environment.

"Shall we go?" Ro suggested, handing him her elbow. But, she then remembered that it wasn't proper for guys to link arms, so she dropped her arm to her side. "Oh, yeah, sorry," she apologized. She began to feel nostalgic for the times that she could hold his arm without having to worry. She would be glad when camp was over and they didn't have to play this gender game anymore.

Bucky's cabin had been fairly close to the entrance to the camp, which meant that they'd have a fair amount of walking to do. In hindsight, it would have been best if they'd tried to sneak around the other side of the lake at the other entrance. But, as their campsite was on this side, it seemed quicker to go by this way.  "I don't think we could be any further apart," Ro commented as they walked towards his cabin.

"You're probably right. I'd say that if our site and his cabin were plotted on a circle, they'd be an equal distance apart."

"What I said, only more technical," Ro laughed.

They passed several other young boys as they walked to Bucky's cabin. No one seemed to be out and about like at the girl's camp. One thing was for sure that in nearly every cabin the glow from at least one computer screen could be seen through the windows.  Those boys that they did pass didn't take a second glace at them. No one noticed that they were new and that they didn't belong. Maybe at the end of the week (after everyone had gotten to know each other) they might recognize that they were outsiders, but not at the beginning of the week.

They finally made it to cabin "B3", Bucky's cabin.  They knew he, or one of his room mates was in there from the loud laughter and shouting that was coming from the inside. "Sounds like a party," Ro commented.

They approached the door of the cabin, and knocked twice before arbitrarily letting themselves in. Ro doubted that Bucky even heard them knock because he was making so much noise with his friends. When they entered Ro saw that Bucky as well as the the rest of his cabin mates were all lying on their beds.

She didn't know the name of the game they were playing, but knew that it was quickly growing in its popularity. The game was most recognized by its unique hardware, which cost a fortune in addition to the game console itself. Each player had a headset with a microphone and earpiece for giving game commands and talking with other players. It also had a holographic visor that projected the game image in front of their face.  While several other games had these functions, the key identifier was the strange controller they were using. The controller was in the shape of a military rifle. The player would use his right hand to operate the trigger, then with his left hand he could operate the directional controls which were located on the stock of the gun on the right side as he was holding the end of the rifle from beneath.  Then end result was a group of boys who looked like they were on the battle field, swinging their riffles right and left, shooting invisible targets, completely oblivious of the world around them past their visors.

Bucky was so engrossed in the game that he didn't notice that they'd let themselves in. "How are things going?" Zee asked.

He briefly turned his head to see who it was, but couldn't see anyone because of the game screen in front of his face. He tilted his head down, and looked over the then edge of the visor to see who it was briefly. He recognized Zee immediately, but it took him a second to realize the person next to him was Ro, only in disguise. After seeing who it was, he then quickly resumed his fixed stare on the screen of his game. "I'm  three kills behind Jerry over there, but I've had the lease amount of deaths than anyone else and I'm third in ranking for holding the skull the longest," he said, in reference to the game he was playing. "The winner gets the access codes for the Jupiter computer database."

Ro was vaguely familiar with the name. Apparently it was a big vid game producer. She rolled her eyes. "We meant the email thing, " she said,  lowering her voice slightly, but not by very much. She would be one thirteen year old who hadn't had his voice change yet.

"Oh, that! I just got my laptop hooked up this morning. I haven't spent much time online so far.

"Because you're playing this dumb game," Ro thought. They obviously did not have his undivided attention. She wished to drag him outside where she could talk normally but it didn't seem that he was anxious to leave the cabin, as he couldn't take his eyes off of his game for more than a second.  "I see you're a little busy now. Should we come back later?" Zee asked.

"No need to trouble yourselves. There's a computer programming seminar this evening that I'm not going to bother to attend. I can take care of thing then," he said.

"If you're sure…" Ro said, incredulously. With the attention that he was giving to his game, she couldn't help but think that this was just an excuse for them to leave him in peace so that he could give it his full attention again.

Bucky knew that it looked like he didn't really care about their needs because he was really into his game, but he did. He also understood the importance of finding the information as soon as possible. The longer the time it was since the incident, the harder it would be to find any information. Also, if they were looking for something in an email, Bennet might only keep the email on his computer for a few days before deleting it, and then they'd never find it. 

"So, how has camp been for you? You get settled in ok yesterday?" he asked, trying to prove that he could carry on a conversation while playing his game at the same time.

"It was fine," Ro said. Normally she would have gone into the situation they'd had with the Redwood girls and Mandy and Jennifer, but she couldn't go into those details because they were supposed to be pretending to be boys. Or, at least she was. Zee was himself.  But it would be weird for either of them to say that they'd been over at the other camp.

            "That's good," Bucky said.  "Got anything planned for later?" he asked them.

            "Well," Ro said mischievously, "We were thinking of playing a couple of pranks at this one campsite at the girl's camp later tonight… We've heard that one of the groups is planning an extensive series or practical jokes to play on us, as is expected. However, we're hoping to beat them to it, though. I can't quite remember the name of the campsite though, but I know it's the one in the middle of the lake. It was some kind of tree. I think it began with an "R"." Ro said slyly, looking at Zee, expecting him to play along. It took him a moment before he realized what she he was up to.

"Redwood?" he suggested.

"That's the one!" Ro said excitedly. "We're sure going to show them, aren't we?" Ro said to Zee, but was looking at Bucky.

He looked up briefly from his game. He wasn't stupid enough not to know that Ro wanted him to read between the lines. It seemed like she was trying to warn him about the Redwood campsite, as they had a lot of pranks planned out, but in the way she delivered this information, it made it seem like she was purposely trying to get him to play his pranks on that particular campsite rather than any other."

"Well, let me know what time specifically you're planning on sneaking over there and we'll help you out," he smirked.  As Bucky said this several of the boys in the cabin chuckled to themselves.

Ro had known that they might have been vaguely listening in on their conversation, which is why she'd brought up the subject. Someone in this group was bound to have a good idea of how to get revenge on the Redwood girls for her.  While they'd taken their towels as a form of revenge, she still felt like she needed to be repaid for how rude they were when they'd first arrived. The towels had just been for showering too long.

"It will be late. Very late," Ro told him.

"Speaking of being late," Zee added, "We only have fifteen minutes before we promised to meet back at the…"

"Right, of course" Ro added quickly, preventing Zee from having to give out too much information or to lie about a location they were supposed to meet some non-existent people at.  "Well, it's been fun, but we have to go," Ro said to Bucky.

            "See ya around," Bucky replied.

            Zee opened the door for Ro and they walked out of Bucky's cabin. When they were a few steps away Zee suggested, "We should go back around the other side of the lake. We don't want to risk having the counselor still be there. However, as there was a counselor from Bucky's camp at the other end, this leads me to believe that one of our counselors might be watching the other side."    

            "Then I'll wear a disguise and you can pretend like you're bringing me back. But you worry too much. With our disguise abilities, we can pull off anything."

            They continued to walk through the boy's camp until they got to the other end. Zee carefully scouted ahead to see if there was anyone guarding the road on this side of the lake, but from what he could see, there was no one.

            "Why wouldn't there be anyone?" Ro asked. "Do they really think that people are only going to try to sneak by on one side of the lake?"

            "I'm not sure. But we should still be careful," Zee said, holomorphing back into his feminine appearance. Ro turned off the bracelet, but still wore it in case they might need another quick disguise.

            They cautiously walked back along the road into the girl's camp, half expecting one of the counselors to jump out from behind a tree. Only when they began to see other girls wandering around on the road and in their campsites, did they relax, knowing that they'd made it back safely.

"So what's next?" Ro asked Zee once they'd made it back to their tent at their campsite.

"I think it's dinner time." Zee said.

"Good, I'm hungry." Apparently all of the walking they'd done had given her a small appetite.

"There you are!" an accusing voice came from across the campsite.

The hair on the back of Ro's neck was on end, but she casually turned around.  Someone had seen them, and they were in trouble now.

It was only Mandy. "I've been looking all over for you two!" Ro wanted to ask if it was because they were in trouble, but knew that if she did, it would be confessing that they had done something that they should fear the consequences of.  "How much trash did you find?" she asked excitedly.  

Maybe they weren't in trouble after all. Ro thought of the empty bags in her pocket. They hadn't picked up a single piece of trash since they'd been given the bags.

"Haven't found anything yet," Ro said.  This was true as they hadn't even bothered to look for any trash yet.

"Instead of swimming, we decided to go and pick up the trash that was along the hiking trails. Man, were they a mess… Anyway, just thought I'd ask. Jennifer is collecting all of the trash we found in one big bag to show off tomorrow at campsite inspection."

"Won't that be nice?" Ro said, trying not to sound too sarcastic. Showing off a bag of garbage like it was a tournament trophy seemed a little out of place.

"Well, I'm going to get washed up before dinner. See you there!" Mandy said, then left them.

"Would you like to wash up too?" Zee asked her.

"Even though I haven't been picking up trash, it's a good idea," Ro said. They then hurried to catch up with Mandy.

Dinner was delicious, and was especially enjoyable as they didn't have clean-up. For dinner they'd had a buffet of Chinese dishes, and as a result, there was sticky rice all over the tables, ground, and on all the dishes.  While they should just leave the mess for the birds to pick off, it would mean that there would later have to clean up the mess left by the birds. The only other worse thing might possible be a spaghetti dish.  They only had a few minutes to return to their campsites and get flashlights and lawn chairs before having to hike to the large campfire circle for the entire camp. Afterwards, they'd have their own individual campsite fires, then they'd be able to go to bed.

"Got your flashlights?" Mandy asked them once they were back at their campsite after dinner.

"Yeah, right here," Ro said, shining the light at Mandy's feet for a demonstration.

"Good. Now, just as a suggestion you might want to bring some bug spray. The mosquitoes will go away once it gets dark in a half hour, but before then, you'll want protection."

"Right," Zee said, selecting a spray bottle and lotion from his pack.

"Now, let's get our chairs and go," Mandy suggested.

Zee picked up Ro's camping chair in addition to his own, and carried them both, one under each arm. "You sure you don't want me to carry it?" Ro asked. She knew that Zee could handle both of them, but it was the human thing to ask.

"I've got them, it's fine," he said.

They followed Jennifer down the path towards the showers that they'd used last night. There was a line of girls coming out the door waiting to use the bathroom. There would definitely be some competition for this shower tonight, unlike last night.  The campfire area was a sloped hill, shaped in a semi-circle. The fire pit was at the bottom of the hill. Large tree trunks had been split in half and were set into the banked hill for benches. Following the other girl's examples, Ro and Zee set up their chairs on top of the bench and sat down.

It wasn't required that the girls sit with their campsites, but by the time that everyone had sat down, everyone had chosen to sit with their own campsite.  Once everyone was seated, the camp director started the campfire meeting. "Glad to see that you all made it. And if you didn't, you wouldn't be here to hear me say that. We don't have much planned tonight, but to review kapers and start the skit bid sign up."

"Kapers?" Zee said quizzically. Even Ro had no clue what the director was talking about this time.

"The plural of K.P., or Kitchen Patrol," Mandy informed him.

The director read off the list that was posted by the kitchen. Ro felt this a complete waste of time, as anyone with half a mind could simply go and read it for themselves. They didn't have to suffer themselves to be mosquito food to hear her read off the chart. When she had read the list, she went on to take bid sign ups for doing a skit at the campfire on different nights.

Each counselor for the campsite went up and drew cards. Whoever had the highest card, got to sign up first. Jennifer miraculously, pulled out the second highest card. When each counselor had a card, they began to sign up for a night to do their skit on. The person with the highest card signed up for the last night, and worked back from there.  Some of the skit nights were doubled up, so even though they had the second highest card they'd still be able to perform on the lat night.  Apparently, whoever had the lowest value card would be stuck being first on the list, and would have to come up with a skit by tomorrow night's campfire. To make matters worse, the skits would be judged by the counselors of the other site for an award at the end of camp. Both Zee and Ro thought this was highly unfair as it would mean other campsites would have more time to put together a better skit. Mandy assured them with the extra bonus points for going first, it would be fair.

The campfire was dismissed after a few more rules were reinforced such as: no running, only walk around in pairs, lights out also meant "be quiet"…

"That was short," Ro commented. It hardly seemed worth the effort of bringing their chairs with. But, they did need their flashlights, as by the time the campfire had ended it was dark.

Ro, Zee, and Mandy returned with the rest of their site to their campsite. Jennifer reviewed their schedule for tomorrow while everyone made smores. "Nothing special about tomorrow, except that we'll be cleaning up in the kitchen after breakfast tomorrow so we'll not have a lot of time to clean up before inspection. So I expect you to clean up tonight, and have everything neatly packed away for tomorrow's inspection," Jennifer told them. "If any of you want to participate in a flag ceremony, let me know soon, and I'll work out a day when you can get certified for that. Also… If any of you have any trash that you've picked up during the day and haven't turned in, bring your garbage bag to me as I'm collecting all of the trash in one big bag…  And, that's it for tonight. Wake-up will be the same time as tomorrow. –Now, someone better have saved me a chocolate bar, or I'm going to be upset…"

Ro's knees were getting nice and warm as she sat in front of the fire, toasting a marshmallow. Some of the people around her were actually roasting their marshmallows. She could always tell when someone's marshamallow had gotten too hot because they'd start screaming as they waived their stick with their burning marshmallow on the end all around in the air, trying to exhaust the flames.

"I'm just waiting for when the marshmallow goes flying off and lands on one of the tents, catching it on fire," Mandy said to Ro, laughing.

"It is a fire hazard indeed," Zee agreed.

She'd only looked away from her marshmallow for a split second, but the flames had leapt up and caught her own marshmallow on fire. As it burned, it melted off of her stick and fell into the fire where it caramelized then turned to ash. "Guess I'll get another one, and try again," Ro said, about to get up.

"You can have mine," Zee offered, holding out his stick with his perfectly golden marshmallow on it. It was completely toasted evenly all around, and even had a crisp outside with a soft inside.

"That is one perfectly-toasted marshmallow," Mandy commented in awe. Of course it was, he'd read the burning temperature of the marshmallow and had compared it to the temperature of the fire, and had carefully watched it to make sure that the heat tolerance level of the marshmallow was not exceeded.

"Would you like me to toast you one?" he asked.

"Nah. Toasting it is half the fun," she replied.  "Why don't you make one for yourself?" she suggested.

"Zee doesn't like marshmallows," Ro said quickly. "And she doesn't like to eat too much sugar before bed. It keeps her up late."

"That might not be such a bad thing," Mandy smirked, then leaned closer to them. "I was thinking of playing a couple of jokes tonight on the boy's camp in the middle of the night. If you're up, do you want to come? I'll be going over with a couple of girls from Evergreen as well."

Ro thought this over in her mind. It would be a good chance to talk to Bucky in private, but if he'd taken their suggestion to play some pranks on Redwood, then he might not be there if they did go over.  "You can wake us up in the middle of the night before you leave, but I'm kind of feeling tired, so I'm not sure if I want to commit to it right now," Ro said. She'd leave her options open, so that she could talk things over with Zee before making a decision.

"Sure," Mandy replied.

Even though there were still a few minutes that they were technically supposed to be in their campsite, around the campfire, Jennifer gave everyone the option of going to get in line for the showers early. While there was still a long line at the regular showers, they only had to wait seven minutes for the showers by the camp campfire circle.

Ro stepped out of the shower, feeling clean and refreshed. Zee was already out and was pretending to dry his hair with a towel. Mandy was still getting dressed in the changing stall. There were some other girls that she could go back to the campsite with, so Ro took this opportunity to excuse her and Zee to go back to the campsite together, so she could go over with him whether they wanted to go over to the boy's camp tonight.  "Mandy, we're going to start heading back to camp, okay? See you in a few minutes!" Ro said cheerily.

"Okay!" her voice echoed from the shower stall.

"Come on," Ro said, linking arms with Zee.

It was as if he'd read her mind, as he immediately brought up the subject she'd been hoping to talk with him about. "Do you really want to go see Bucky again tonight?" he asked.

"Not really. I actually am feeling a little tired... Do you want to go without me? Then again—sending you somewhere alone without a robot to human translator might not be such a good idea."

"I'm more worried as to whether you'll be fine by yourself while I'm gone."

"I think I can handle myself tonight. The first night is usually the scariest."

"Then our only problem would be if Bucky and his friends, were trying to do the exact same thing to our camp while we're over there at his."

"Which might be why it would be a good idea for me to stay and you to go then."

"Only if you're sure."

Ro thought about it for a minute, "I don't know why but sending you off by yourself doesn't feel right. We'll let it pass tonight. We don't want him to be exhausted tomorrow because we kept him up tonight. Besides, if I know Bucky, he is going to go for the prank tonight because of what we said earlier. I want to  here to hear their screams."

            They continued to walk back to their campsite, with Ro's armed linked around his. Such an intimate gesture was automatically degraded to "casual friends" because of the fact that they were both girls. He was tempted to resume his normal appearance, if only for a moment, because it was dark so no one could see him, but he didn't dare. He wasn't going to do something risky like that without a logical reason.

            Ro replaced her toiletries in their tent and checked to see that the rest of her stuff hadn't been tampered with during the rest of the day. Everything seemed to be in its place. She didn't think that they had to worry about someone getting into their stuff as there would usually be someone at the campsite, or everyone would be together at the flag ceremony or at breakfast so there wouldn't be anyone around to worry about having to protect their things from.

            Zee jumped up and grabbed the net ladder down and held it steady for Ro to climb up. "Thanks," she said, once she'd reached the top. It was very gratifying to be regarded as useful.

            Ro was still arranging her sleeping bag on the net—as close to the center as possible—when Mandy returned from the showers with some of the other girls. Ro called her over to her to tell her that they were going to pass on tonight's adventure.

            "That's alright, there's always tomorrow as well," Mandy winked.  She then went to her own tent to go to bed.

            "Today seemed pretty easy," Ro commented, snuggled up in her sleeping bag. "But it seems like tomorrow is going to be more hectic."

            "There's nothing much different except that we'll have breakfast kapers."

            "That, and we'll also have to think of a new way to get over to talk to Bucky. Also, there's that skit thing we're going to have to participate in, and Jennifer's going to want us to do something else to 'improve our campsite' on top of that…. And we haven't collected one piece of trash at all today."

            Zee didn't say anything, but listened to Ro. Humans sure worried about the most petty of all things. Then again, who was he to speak? He processed every little bit of information no matter how small it was. Several times he would analyze the smallest gesture, trying to read the person's motivations behind it, and would turn it into a really big deal when it had been something rather small. He did this a lot when he was with Ro. He was constantly trying to read her mind, and predict her reactions, but she always surprised him by doing something unexpected. "I could go out and look for garbage tonight," he suggested.

            "I'm not going to bother with it anymore," Ro said, scooting closer to him. "It's nice right here. I'm sure everyone else got enough. Besides, it's the thought that counts. Not the quantity of trash accumulated."

            "Goodnight, Ro," Zee said softly.

            "Goonight, Zee," Ro yawned, and fell asleep.

            So began another night that he'd stay up watching. It was at least an hour before each tent grew quiet. The girls seemed more tired and less excited today than the night before, so the urge to stay up late was lessened. He wondered if anyone was going to come into their campsite tonight. A  regular person would get bored from just watching a bunch of trees all night long and might wish for some action, but he hoped for a calm night. If there was to be some disturbance, he hoped it would be Bucky sneaking over to tell them that he had some good news about Dr. Edmund.  He knew that they were looking for him on his behalf, but he was now realizing that he hoped that they'd find Edmund more for Ro's sake than for his. As soon as his name was cleared, so would her name be.  But then, would she leave him? He was sure that she wouldn't, but this doubt wouldn't stay passive in his mind for very long before he found himself thinking about it again. He was sure that their interdependency on each other had grown to be more than a survival instinct.

            It irritated him that whenever he thought about Ro leaving him he wished to jeopardize their current plan for his freedom. Right now, he was thinking of ways how he could innocently prevent them from finding any information on Dr. Edmund without making it seem like it was his fault. Such ideas were encouraging Bucky to play the online game with his friends, and to help him to get distracted or to forget to look for the information.  When he started thinking about such topics, he'd get a feeling of what Ro described as "remorse or guilt". While he would enjoy her company if she were to stay with him, it would be a bittersweet victory, as he'd always feel bad for taking away her chance for freedom.  Then again, how was he to know that she wouldn't still want to stay with him once she got it?

            He lay next to her, listening to the quiet sounds of the forest, and the comforting sound of Ro breathing in each of those sounds, then exhaling softly. No matter what he thought, or how he felt—her needs, her best interest, should always come first, even if it meant a life without him.

            At around four thirty in the morning, he heard the zipper to Mandy's tent slowly opening up. Then he heard her lightly stepping out of her tent. She was very careful in walking around to the other tents to wake up her accomplices as the slightest snap of a twig could wake Jennifer up. If that were to happen their plans would be ruined. In only a few minutes, Mandy and three other girls set off to the boy's camp. Each had a backpack on which they probably had their items for playing practical jokes in. Apparently Mandy had decided to leave her toilet paper bed alone for another day, as nothing they were carrying could possible hold all of the rolls she had for her bed.

            They set out, and returned an hour later. Their smug faces let him know that that must have made a successful run. Quietly they climbed back into their tents and went back to sleep. He'd have to have Mandy tell him about what they did in the morning.


	4. Day 3

"Good morning."

            Ro opened her eyes slowly, and looked around her surprise at waking up in this new environment was practically nullified as it was the second time she was waking up in this new environment. It was the third day of camp. By the end of the week, she was sure that she would be waking up as if the forest were a bedroom that she'd been living in for the past five years of her life.  "Morning," she replied.  She looked down at Mandy's tent. The door was zipped up. She couldn't tell if Mandy was still in it, or if she was already awake. She'd have to ask her how the run on the boy's camp went later.  

            Zee knew that she was still asleep, though. Probably was exhausted from running around last night. "We have kitchen duty this morning," he reminded Ro.

            "I know!" she replied. She wasn't completely incapable of remembering important facts. With Zee remembering every single detail that went on it was easy to not bother to remember anything on her own, but that would only lead to bad habits later in life. She rubbed her eyes, hoping it would help her to wake up a little more. "So, what happened last night?" she asked.

            "Mandy got up at 4:30, like she planned, and went out with a couple of girls from our site for about an hour."

            "Wow. I didn't think they'd go through with it. Well, she's probably tired then, so we'll go and get dressed first, then wake her up."

            Ro and Zee got up with several of the other campers and headed to the bathrooms. When they got back, they unzipped Mandy's tent door a crack to see if she was up yet. She was a sight. She had bags under her eyes, and her hair was all over the place. "You up?" Ro asked, even though it was clear that se was awake as she was sitting up in her sleeping bag.

            "Yeah…man, I'm tired, though."

            "How did things go last night?" Ro asked.

            "Wonderful. I'll tell you about it over breakfast… Tell you what, though. Wake me up five minutes before we head up to the kitchen. I'm going back to bed," she said, then lay back down to get half an hour more sleep.

            "Sneaking out at night does seem to have its downsides," Ro smirked, zipping up Mandy's tent. As they were already dressed, they began to clean up their campsite as they wouldn't have time to do it after breakfast because they had clean up. The campsite hadn't gotten that dirty since the day before, so there was not much to do. Jennifer collected all of the trash into one big bag to save for when the inspector did come by.  After a half hour, they went back to Mandy's tent to let her know that she had five minutes before they headed to the flag ceremony. While Ro was used to getting dressed and ready to go quickly because they never knew when the feds might barge in on them, she didn't think that she could only spend five minutes getting ready in the morning. She didn't even think it was possible until she saw Mandy do it. More impressively, it wasn't that Mandy just put on a bra and tied her hair back. She actually looked decently presentable.

            They hurried to the flag circle with the rest of their group with Jennifer in the lead. Ro half expected to see more clothes or towels from the Redwood girl's campsites up, but there weren't any. Some girls from the Buckeye campsite were in charge of the flag.

"We should sign up. I can teach you how," Mandy offered. 

"Maybe… But not today," Ro said. She didn't want to devote any of their free time hours to learning how to raise the flag until they'd settled things with Bucky. "Maybe in the second half of the week?" she suggested.

"Sounds good."

When the ceremony was over they walked to the kitchen. The competition between the counselors to be first in line for breakfast was a bubble gum blowing contest. Each had three minutes to chew the gum, and whoever blew the biggest bubble at the end got to be first in line. Needless to say, Jennifer was last. Three minutes hadn't been enough time to chew up the gum so when it came time to blow a bubble, she practically spit out the entire piece of gum. Everyone laughed, "This isn't a gum spitting contest. That was yesterday!" the director teased her.

"Don't worry. We'll be in line for lunch first," the rest of the Laurel campsite assured her. No one was mad that she'd gotten last because the piece of gum had landed right near the Redwood girl's table. When they'd seen it come flying towards them they'd shrieked and had leapt back away from the table, thinking it was going to land on one of them.

"I actually have a confession," Jennifer whispered to her girls. "I wasn't trying to blow a bubble with the gum. They say that I got last place, but I really think I deserve second. The only thing I didn't account for was that I was facing the breeze… I was just a few feet short…"

Their table burst out laughing. The line moved quickly, so it didn't seem like they had to wait that long to get food. Today for breakfast they had French toast with fruit salad, and ham or sausage. The cooks definitely outdid themselves with cooking their meals. It didn't seem like clean up was going to be bad. At least it wasn't like cleaning up rice from Chinese, or trying to get rid of the tomato sauce smell from the cooking pots for spaghetti. Cereal might be a little gross to clean up, as everything would be soggy, but they only had to clean up after breakfast once during the camping session.

"So, what did you do last night?' Ro asked over breakfast.

"Well, we thought we were going to sneak over to the boy's camp and create some mischief, but… the funniest thing happened. We bumped into this group of guys who were sneaking over here to do the exact same thing! It was really funny because we scared the living crap out of each other! We totally thought we were busted or something."

"So what did you do then?" Ro asked. She knew without a doubt that it was Bucky and his friends who had been the group they'd bumped into.

"Well, since the element of surprise was ruined we decided to change our objectives. Instead, we went over to Redwood's camp…"

Zee looked mildly interested in the story now. He wished he'd been there to deal some revenge on the group, except that it would have meant that he'd left Ro alone.  "What kind of pranks did you play?" he asked.

"Nothing big. Didn't want to waste them on Redwood, as much as they might deserve it.  I'm still going to go over and play our intended pranks on the boy's camp another night. We just used the minor stuff… fake beetles and spiders in their shoes, animal noises outside the doors of their tents… Mainly the stuff was supplied by the guys. They were getting to play their pranks on the intended party... You know that it was a good prank because they all looked rather put off at the flag ceremony," Mandy smirked, referring to the Redwood girls. Ro had to agree that if she found a fake beetle in her shoes she would be rather annoyed. Just thinking about it made her feet itch in her shoes and she wanted to take them off and check to see that a real one hadn't crawled in her shoes.

            "How do you know it's because of that? Don't hey always look like someone's holding a dirty sock under their noses?" Zee asked.

            Ro laughed loudly along with Mandy. Zee smiled. He actually had a sense of humor!  

When they'd finished eating, they went to the back of the kitchen to begin to wash the several dishes that had piled up. "There's gloves in the cupboard," the cooks instructed them.

            "Thank goodness. There's no way I'd touch those dishes else wise!" Ro said, looking at the stack.

            Zee looked at the cheap disposable gloves and wondered if he should put one on, or if she should just create a hologram of it. But, as Ro seemd utterly detested at touching the plates with their food scraps on it, he figured that she wouldn't want to touch his hand if he touched the dirty plates without the gloves. So, he picked up a pair, and began to slide it on over his hand. It was fairly difficult for him as the latex was apt to clinging to his metal hands, rather than smoothly sliding over like they did for Ro and Mandy. He had to work the gloves onto his hands.

            They began an assembly line with Mandy scraping the plates of the food into the trash can, Zee washing, Ro rinsing, then another girl from their campsite drying. The girl would stack the dishes until another girl finished eating, and was able to put the dishes away.  Even though they didn't think that it would take them that long to clean up, with all of the cooking utensils, pots, and the dishes that the girls actually used, they were there for an entire forty five minutes. There was definitely no time to clean up their site for inspection, which made Ro glad that they'd done so before leaving for the flag circle.

            "Good job ladies, now let's go," Jennifer said, once they'd finished.

The group began the slow trek back to their campsite. They got to pass each of the other sites on their way back. Some of the groups had already begun their lessons in water purification and the food pyramid, while others were in the process of getting ready to start their lessons. Strangely, however, the Redwood group was sitting idly by their campfire with smug looks on their faces.

"What's up with them?" Ro asked, noting their expressions as they passed.

"That," Mandy said gloomily, pointing to their campsite up ahead.

            If he hadn't been actively listening to Mandy, he might have noticed the white streamers of toilet paper strewn all over their campsite earlier. Their campsite had been hit, big time. Sometime from when they left it for the flag ceremony they'd been hit big time.

            Jennifer hurried to the front of the group, appalled.  Their beautiful campsite was a mess. And to top things off, the director was standing right there, waiting for them. Jennifer began to apologize for the state of their campsite, and assured her that they would clean it all up. However, it was obvious that they would not be winning the cleanest campsite award today because of this event.

            "They did this?" Ro asked, staring at the mess.

            "Who else?" Mandy sighed. "No one from the boy's camp could have made it over here to do this in broad daylight."

            "How did they know that it was you last night?" Zee asked, assuming that this TP-ing was their form of revenge for the fake bugs in their shoes.

            "I don't know. But, they wouldn't necessarily have had to know that it was us to do this. We were conveniently delayed afterwards because of kitchen duty. They had plenty of time to do it."

            "I guess we'd better start cleaning it all up, then," Ro sighed.  Luckily for them, they'd covered today's lesson yesterday so they could use this time to clean up the toilet paper rather than have to spend their free time cleaning it up.

Cleaning up the toilet paper went rather quickly. It was more of the insult that they wouldn't get the cleanest campsite award for the day that hurt more than the task of cleaning it up. Jennifer was muttering threats and curses under her breath to whoever was responsible for this. Being a counselor, she wasn't permitted to admit that she knew it was Redwood, as that might cause hostility between campsites. Being a counselor, she was to set a good example by not encouraging revenge, but everyone knew that she was expecting (even hoping) that they would deliver revenge anyway.

When the toilet paper had been collected, Jennifer gathered the girls into a group by the campfire. She instructed the girls to dump the toilet paper into the middle of the campfire. She then produced a fine wire mesh covering, which she placed over the top. Her next instructions were, "Burn it."

They lit the toilet paper, and burned brightly and quickly.  The mesh prevented the fine ash from flying into the air and possibly causing a forest fire.  Jennifer stood behind it and delivered her speech of renewed optimism, "Girls, we've been wronged today. But that does not mean that we will not have another opportunity to be first in line for lunch. I would tell you that 'here's always tomorrow', but tomorrow we're having lunch at our campsite, so we'd only be able to be first in line for dinner, and we want a complete victory! Now, while I'm sure that we could cover tomorrow's lesson in the twenty minutes that we have left for today's lesson, I was thinking that we might start brainstorming skit ideas instead."

After she said this, several girls raised their hands excitedly. But, Jennifer did not call on them but added, "Also, I don't want anyone to suggest a skit that they've seen performed here before, no matter how many years ago it was. We don't want any repeat ideas." With that, the girls put their hands down. The only skits that they'd ever heard or seen of had been at this camp. "Oh come on," Jennifer sighed, "someone has to have some idea!"

One of the girl's spoke up, "What if we do that one where you have the cook, and everyone likes his dish because of the special ingredient…"

Another girl interrupted her, "Rabbit droppings being confused as raisins is NOT funny. That's sounds like something the boys at the other camp would think of!"

The girl added sheepishly, "My brother goes there…it was the skit they did last year…"

Exasperated sighs were heard throughout the entire group.

Another girl suggested, "What about the one with the sheet…"

"If you're suggesting it like we've heard of it before, chances are we have," someone snapped.

"Oay," Mandy sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers.

"Maybe it would help if we talked about what kind of a skit we'd like to put on? Like, a comedy, a drama, perhaps an adventure skit?" someone suggested.

"That's a good way to start," Jennifer agreed. The group began to brainstorm ideas of what type of a skit they'd like to do. However, their conversation was mostly arguing and putting down other people's suggestions. Nothing was really being accomplished.

Two of the younger girls, bored with the bickering and disharmony, got up from the circle. Seeing two long branches for tending the fire they picked them up and began having a mock sword duel. As they became more animated in their game, their voices grew louder, and it became harder to hear what anyone was saying.

"Should it have a moral, or should it reflect our experiences here at camp?" another girl suggested quietly. With the put downs everyone else was receiving for their ideas, she hadn't been sure if she wanted to speak up at all.

"I can't hear you, Lindsey. Say it again," Jennifer instructed her.

"I was just thinking that maybe it should have a moral…" Lindsey said a little louder, but still very quietly. Jennifer still couldn't hear her over the dueling girls.

"I can't hear!" Jennifer shouted. "GIRLS! Could you please keep it down!" she shouted, as she turned around to see what the girls were doing that was causing so much noise. She didn't shout in a way that suggested that she was angry with them, but more on the lines that she was trying very hear what Lindsey had to say. The two girls dropped the sticks, and looked sheepishly at her. They both knew that they'd gotten carried away, and looked at Jennifer reproachfully, hoping that she wouldn't scold them too much. However, Jennifer didn't say anything. She was very quiet, as inspiration struck her. "I've got an idea!" she declared loudly, standing up so quickly from her fold-out chair that it fell over. 

            "What is it?" one of the girls asked her.

            "It will be a sword-fighting skit. I know you'll all love it. We can gather large branches, and start whittling our own swords today! You all brought your knives, right?"

            The girls in the group nodded. Ro did too. If Jennifer was assuming that they'd brought them, then it must have been on the list, so she knew that Zee had brought them.  "Good! Then those of you who know how to properly take care of a knife and the safety procedures can go and look for large, long, branches, and those of you who don't can stay here while I give you a short tutorial. You can make them during free time or whenever you have a free moment during the week, or at our personal campfires."

Ro could imagine Jennifer's version of a tutorial on knife safety, "This is the sharp end. Sharp objects can cut you. If you didn't know that how the heck are you still alive?..."

"Now, does anyone here know anything about sparring or fencing?" she asked next.

The girls looked around at each other. They'd all seen movies about fighting with swords, but none of them had had any special training or instruction in the art. "Well… I guess we'll just have to choreograph something ourselves…" she sighed. "But! It will still be a kick-butt performance!"

"I might be able to help out," Zee spoke up.

Ro glanced sharply at him. When did he learn to fence?  "Could you?" Jennifer asked. "Any little hints you might have to make it look more authentic would help out."

"Sure," Zee replied.

Ro tugged on his sleeve and pulled his ear closer to her lips. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "You don't know how to sword fight!"

He whispered in reply, "If we make it over to Bucky's cabin I can download a tutorial for it off of the net. If not, I've got several vid clips sword fighting in it stored in my memory from movies that we've seen together."

He was a smart robot, indeed. Apparently he was capable of helping out. Ro felt a little pang of guilt for thinking that he was offering to do something that he didn't have the skills for. Zee would be an excellent teacher.

"Are we going to go over there today?" she asked quietly.

"We can always try."

Jennifer began to plan out the details for the skit while the girls went to their tents to get their knives, or to look for a branch to make their sword out of. The next thing on the agenda was lunch so they the option of leaving if they wanted to, or they could stick around and learn how to handle their knives. 

"We can find a branch or a stick later, let's go," Ro said to Zee.

"You guys going somewhere?" Mandy asked them as they got up.

Great, now they'd have to think of an excuse that would deter her from wanting to go with them wherever they were going. Unfortunately, Ro couldn't think of anything off the top of her head. The best thing would be to say that they didn't really know where they were going so there was no point in her tagging along. "We just thought we'd see what there was to do in these few minutes before lunch," Ro replied, trying to make it sound like they weren't doing anything important that we'd want to accompany them on.

"Well then," Mandy said slyly. "Want to try and make a daytime run on the boy's camp with me then?" she asked quietly. "I was actually hoping to get together with those boys again and possibly plan our revenge on Redwood with them… I told them that I'd try to meet with them this afternoon over at their camp, but I didn't  make anything official, so we don't have to if you don't want to. But… if you're interested, it could be lots of fun…"

"What about lunch? You don't think we'd be able to get over there and back in just a few minutes, do you?" Ro asked.

"I'll tell Jennifer that we'll be hiking and taking a sack lunch so she won't have to worry about us."

Ro was surprised, yet pleased. This was perfect. "Absolutely," she replied, "but how do you suppose we sneak over there in broad daylight?" 

"There's a trail that goes around the mountain. If you cut off it at a certain point, it leads to one of the trails that goes into the boy's camp. If we leave now, we can make it over there and back before dinner," Mandy whispered.

"Sounds good to us," Ro said confidently. She was more than up to learning a secret way into the boy's camp. That way they wouldn't have to worry about coming up with an excuse to give to the counselor guarding the path again.

Mandy went and told Jennifer that they would be hiking and bringing a sack lunch, and that if they were more than a half hour late to dinner that they should send a search party after them.

"What are you going to pack for a lunch?" Jennifer asked. "You know you're not supposed to have food in the tents because it attracts animals."

Mandy looked up sheepishly, trying to look innocent. "But it's all individually packaged…" she said optimistically.

"I don't know, it still might not be enough. I'd have to see it for myself…" Jennifer said, smirking. Mandy had the same mischievous smile on her face as well. Ro could sense some form of a bargain was about to be made from their sly tones of voices, but didn't know exactly what they were going to do about it. Zee was completely clueless.

Mandy led Jennifer to her tent, and went inside. Jennifer crouched while entering, and followed her inside. Mandy brought out her bag which had all of her snacks in it from her larger duffle bag. She spread out the contents on her sleeping bag. While not all of the items were individually packaged as Mandy had said, Jennifer didn't comment on this. Instead she eyed the candy, looking over the large selection. Then she announced that the chocolate bar would have to be confiscated as it was unsafe to have in the tent because the chocolate smell would attract animals more than the smell from the other items. Mandy handed the bar over to Jennifer, not grudgingly but as if she were sharing the food with a friend and not handing it over because of her superior's orders. Jennifer announced that Mandy could "keep the rest", but then paused at the doorway to the tent, and decided that the HoHo's would have to be removed as well. Mandy tossed them to her, smiling.

"I don't know about you, but I certainly don't think I want to eat just candy for lunch," Ro commented.

"Nah, this was just to bribe Jennifer. I've got some healthier snack foods in my other pack. Jennifer loves chocolate. She'll let you do anything for a bar of chocolate, but she won't come out and say it—you have to find a way to 'bargain' with it."

Mandy then brought out another bag of her pack that had trail mix, beef jerky, drink boxes, and other non-perishable travel foods.  She packed them into her backpack. The backpack also had a first aid kit in it, and some other emergency supplies that they might need if they were really hiking.

"Why all the food?" Zee couldn't help but asking. When he and Ro traveled they never carried food with them. He couldn't imagine why any normal person would though. Also, the food wasn't that bad here… He could see someone bringing junk food as none was provided, but why would someone bring this much trail mix and drink packs?

"My mom packed it all for me.  She knows that they feed us well, but she always says, 'You never know when you'll get hungry or when you'll be wanting a midnight snack.' And--knowing that I'm going to a camp full of girls she knows that packing for one person is not going to be enough. It's always eaten by the end of camp, so she doesn't have to worry about it going to waste."

Ro thought about her mom. Would she be the kind to worry about her getting enough to eat? She knew that her mom did care about her as she'd left them in the care of her grandparents, but when they'd died, why hadn't she bothered to reclaim her rather than letting her and Casey go to the orphanage? What about her dad? Surely one of them could have taken them in…. Whatever the reason they'd left, it must have been really important, or maybe… they really didn't care about them at all? She had to stop thinking about it. She might start crying if she dwelled on the thought.

"That's nice of her," she commented, then changed the subject quickly. "Let's go before it gets any later."

Mandy lead them to the trail they would be following. A few feet down the trail, it branched off into two separate trails. Mandy informed them that the trail on the right would lead them to the "Hidden Falls", but that they would be following the trail on the left. Zee made a mental note of this junction in case Ro would want to come back to it. After all, she had said that she wanted to find the hidden falls for this camp. They followed the trail for half a mile, and then Mandy signaled that it was time to leave the trail and start bushwhacking.

"Watch out for poison oak," she warned them. "It looks like that," Mandy said pointing to a bush that had the poison oak growing out of it. It certainly didn't help that it was disguising itself inside of another plant. "You're really going to be hating it if it gets on your skin or clothes…"

Mandy was careful to make sure that she didn't touch the bushes with poison oak growing out of the, but brushed up against the ones that didn't. Ro was overly careful to make sure that she didn't touch ANY bush or plant.  Maybe coming down this trail in the middle of the night wasn't as good of an idea as she'd imagined that it might be. She wouldn't stand a chance at avoiding all of these bushes in the dark. While it didn't matter if he came in contact with the poison oak or not, Zee avoided the plants so that it seemed like he was actually worried about touching them as a human would be. The oils from the plant would not cause him to become itchy or for a rash to break out on his metal skin, but it would be a problem if he spread the oil to someone else because he didn't wash it off.

            "How many people know about this trail?" Ro asked, as they began a short uphill climb.

            "Not many. Jennifer might be the only counselor who knows about it. I don't think any of the others do. I don't know how many of the boys' camp counselors know about it either… It's not marked or maintained like the other trails are so no one really ever uses it. "

            "How did you learn about it?" Zee asked curiously.

            Mandy laughed to herself, "Jennifer showed it to me. She's not that old, you know… She used to be a camper here. She was 17. It was her last year here as a camper before she was old enough to become a counselor… It was my first year here. She showed me the trail and we went and played pranks on the boys' camp every night. But, as the poison oak has grown so much over these past few years I wouldn't dare to come here at night. I'll have to ask her who showed her the trail… Then again, I wouldn't doubt that she found it for herself when looking for a way to sneak over there herself."

            After reaching the top of the small incline, the hill they were on sloped downward. There at the bottom was a well marked trail. It was the trail that would lead into the boy's camp. Perfect. "Now, we should be careful not to make too much noise as we don't want to get caught," Mandy said, leading the way down the slope to the trail.

            In her excitement to go see Bucky, Ro hadn't given much thought to how they were going to move around inside of the boy's camp without being caught. They couldn't use the bracelet or Zee's hologram for disguises with Mandy here… "Uh, Mandy?" Ro commented. "How are we going to sneak around the boy's camp? Won't someone see us?"

            "They're going to escort us to their cabin."

            "How far is it away?" Ro asked, even though she knew that it was well on the other side of the boy's camp.

            "The other side of the camp."

            "Oh really?" Ro said, trying to sound a little bit surprised.  "Doesn't that mean we'll have to run through the entire camp? How are we not going to be seen?"

            "They said that they'll let the closest cabin on this end of the camp know that we might be coming, and that they should just email them word if we show up. We only have to worry about being seen by a counselor before we reach their cabin though."

 "I wouldn't have too much faith in their integrity to keep their word," Ro said uneasily.

"Nonsense, what more could a camp full or hormone raged-pre-pubescent teenage boys want more than to have three gorgeous women knocking on their cabin door? Or walking around their camp for their viewing pleasure?" Mandy winked.

            Ro laughed nervously to herself. How strange it must be for Zee who was only pretending to be a girl for the time being!

            "I would still be a little suspicious," Zee cautioned. "If we were to get caught, or if they were to turn us in that might be qualifications to be sent home."

            "You worry too much. I'm sure it will be fine," Mandy brushed the thought off.

            "You're sure willing to risk a lot to see these guys," Ro teased her. "They must be pretty cute."

            "Oh please," Mandy said, rolling her eyes. They're all rather young, and quite unattractive. One of them, if he were older, might be worthy of going on a date, but not now. Then again, it was dark so I didn't really get to see any of them that well."

            The trail was ending, and they could see the cabins of the boy's camp off in the distance. "This is it," Mandy whispered. "See anyone?"

            "No one," Zee said stately.

            "Are you sure?" Mandy asked.

            "Oh yeah. If Zee says there's no one. There's no one," Ro corroborated.

            "Let's go then!"  She led the group into the boy's camp, running. They were surely going to draw some attention to themselves if anyone was around. They were kicking up dust in addition to making a scene by breaking the "no running rule". Ro was sure it applied to this camp, as well.

            Ro lightly jogged after her, keeping a careful eye out for counselors. Zee would alert her if there were any so she didn't worry too much. They made it to the door of the closest cabin. Mandy knocked on it eagerly, and a crack in the door appeared. The pair of eyes behind it quickly looked over them, then admitted them inside. Ro felt herself dragged in by Mandy, and Zee quickly leapt inside before the door slammed shut.

Once inside they were quickly instructed to crouch closely to the floor and to keep their heads down below the window levels. The boys in this cabin were all stationed at various points in the cabin. They had small radio transmitters in hand, and headphones on. They were speaking a strange code language between each other that made Ro roll her eyes so hard she thought they might get stuck in the back of her head.

            "Come in Mother Bird. Eagles have arrived at the nest. Come to outpost Toucan to escort Eagles, stat. Vulture is still unloading at shit-house," one of the boys spoke through the radios.

            "It's code," Zee commented.

            "Thank you, captain obvious," Ro commented.

            "What the heck is this nonsense?" a voice shouted through the radio. Several of the boys quickly fumbled to turn down the volume control, then had to remember to turn it up again when the voice had stopped shouting.  "Just say they're there! No need for this gibberish!"

            "They're coming. They'll be here momentarily," the boy replied, a little humbled. Rather than feeling embarrassed, everyone in the cabin started laughing. The boys continued to watch for the counselor until Bucky's cabin arrived to pick them up. There was a strange pattern of knocks on the door. The boy stationed at the door responded with another series of rhythmic knocks. The person at the door responded…          

            "I can't take any more of this!" Ro said, standing up from where she was crouching on the floor. She hurried to the door, and pulled it open. The boy at the door looked rather surprised. Ro recognized him from yesterday, but wasn't going to say anything about it. As far as he knew, he'd never seen her before.

            "Come on, let's go," Ro said, leading the way out of their cabin.

            "Shhh!" not so loud! The boy whispered. He quickly pulled her around the back of the cabin. Zee and Mandy followed. The door to the cabin shut.

            Behind the cabin were several more of the boy's from Bucky's cabin, and some others whom Ro had not met or seen before. Mandy was familiar with them all, though.

            "We brought you some disguises," one of the boys said.  Their "disguises" were hats to hide their hair in and some grunge-looking T-shirts. They had pants for them as well, in case one of them happened to decide to be as ridiculous as to wear a pink or frilly pair of pants to camp. 

            Even though they were dressed up now, the boys still insisted on darting from tree to tree all the way back to Bucky's cabin, as well as radioing to the scout ahead. Next time, Ro and Zee would defiantly be sneaking back here alone in their holographic disguises. Ro was more than glad when they'd finally made it to Bucky's cabin. They knocked on the door, then entered unceremoniously.

            There were several boys in Bucky's cabin, several which Ro knew didn't sleep there. Apparently word had spread that some girls might be visiting later in the afternoon, so they'd conveniently found an excuse to come and visit. Several of them were playing the same game that Bucky had been playing yesterday. Bucky wasn't with them though. He was at his laptop computer.  He turned around when the door closed again, and everyone was inside.

            Ro could already feel the sweltering heat building up from having so many people in the two rooms. There seemed to be plenty of room if everyone was standing, but there would be some shuffling going on if they were going to try and make it so that everyone could sit down. Luckily, someone graciously opened a window so they could breathe some cool air. They removed their disguises and handed them to one of the boys to be taken care of. He looked at the clothes disgustedly as they had been worn by girls, while another was breathing in the sweet smell of Mandy's lotion.

            "Who's your friend Ro?" Bucky teased her, looking at Zee. Ro recoiled her arm to smack him upside the head. Not only for making a bad pass at Zee, but for giving away the fact that he knew them.  "Just kidding, just kidding!" he apologized, putting his hands up in defense.

            "You know him?" Mandy asked suggestively. In her mind she was wondering how Ro could not have told her that she knew someone from this cabin!

            "Yeah, but I wish I didn't," Ro wittily replied.

            "So what brings you guys all the way over here?" Bucky asked.

            "Some plotting, and some other business," Ro said.  "Did you really sneak over last night?"

            "Yeah, which is why it was your turn to sneak over today.  But we made it easier on you by taking care of the patrol…"

            Giggles spread throughout the entire cabin. "Does this have to do with ' the vulture is still unloading at the latrine?" Ro said, using a nice euphemism.

            "It wasn't my idea, but it seems to have worked out rather well. Carl over there brought the X-lax…"

            "EWWWW!!! GROSS!!!" Ro said, covering her ears with her hands. She didn't want to hear any more of it. When it looked like they weren't going to say anything more she uncovered her ears and asked, "So, how did you know we'd be coming then to take care of the situation?" she asked. She'd been under the impression that Mandy had said that they wouldn't be expecting them but knew that they might be coming over.   

            Carl smirked, "We didn't. Well we did, but we didn't do the X-lax thing for you. It just happened to work out coincidentally."

            "But when we came to the other cabin they were in their look out positions," Mandy pointed out.

            "That's because you tripped the laser on your way over."

            Carl felt a sharp jab in his side and realized that he'd said too much. The girls weren't supposed to know that they had rigged up an alarm system to let them know when someone was coming. Now they would know to look out for it, and might possibly find a way to get around it. Then again, if they were bothering to plot together, they'd be revealing many more of their secrets.

            "So you willingly put the X-lax in that poor counselor's food, just as a prank?" Mandy asked.

            "We've done worse," another boy spoke up. This started a long conversation about the details of those other previous pranks, and what else they could do which was even more evil. Rather than joining in the conversation, Ro and Zee took the opportunity to talk to Bucky. He was uninvolved in the conversation.

            "How's it going?" Ro asked him. She didn't really expect him to have spent any time looking for information for them.

            "I'm working on it right now," Bucky surprised her. "I've got the ISP numbers for their database. It's all monitoring from here to find out which one goes to which employee…"

            Ro looked at the computer screen more carefully. The window wasn't open to some technical document, but a lamp on Ebay. "You're not looking at all!" she accused him.

            "Yes I am!" he replied, offended.

            "You're shopping online!"

            "Wrong, this person is shopping on line. Watch," he said, then closed the window. The regular default screen for his computer came up. There were several other small windows open, each showing a different browser page. Each seemed to be running in its own little world, not being controlled by Bucky at all. He had a list in front of him with several numbers printed up on it. Some numbers had red lines through them, and others were marked with a question mark.

            So he was monitoring after all… "I'm sorry… I just thought that you were goofing off again… like yesterday…." Ro apologized.

            "I'll have you know, I lost that game yesterday," he added. "But that's okay. Thanks for apologizing. You can take me out to dinner sometime to make up for it."

            Ro had been feeling humbled for a moment, but the feeling soon passed. "So, how do you know which ones to cross off?" she asked him.

            "Well first of all, I can only see what they're doing if they're computer is on, and they're online. Then I can view the page that they're viewing. I've started out by eliminating the ones that I know are female, or that I don't think are Bennet.  The ones that aren't online are another story."

            "So how do you know if one person is female or male?"

            "Well, out of all the guys you know, how many do you think will go shopping for a Vintage lamp on Ebay?"

            House decorating was a woman's art, meaning that the person was probably a female.  "None, actually…" Ro had to admit. 

            "So, probably a female," he said, then opened up another window. It was an ordering page for a work uniform.

            "I can't tell on this one," Ro said.

            "Male," Zee deduced.

            "And how did you know?" Ro asked him.

            "The size measurements are too large for a female."

            "Precisely," Bucky agreed.

            "But how do you know it isn't a woman who is big-boned?" Ro asked.

            "The buttons on the jacket are on the right, rather than the left," Zee explained. Ro hadn't been looking that closely to notice… They really would have to take Bucky out again. This was really hard work!

            "After watching them for a couple of minutes, it becomes really easy to separate them.  Thinning out the selection of men becomes harder though, but I find ways to manage," he said, sounding rather cocky. Ro didn't care anymore as long as he got the job done.

            "What if they aren't online?" she asked.

            "Then I have to go to the network server, and download their hard drive to my computer and look over the files there to see if there's any thing that will let me know more about them. It's really hard because the NSA has tight security so they don't let large files be randomly sent over their server, and they don't save everyone's hard drive on the network."

            "Well then what can you work with?" Ro asked.

            "They're personal preferences log on. If they sign in on anyone else's computer, then they can request to have their computer files sent over to that computer—if their computer is online—and turn someone else's computer into their computer. Just by seeing what they've got for their wallpaper background, I can easily tell who they are."

            "Very impressive," Ro complimented him, noting the separate list of usernames and log-in passwords. While the NSA was a large organization, he apparently only was focusing on the head quarters Bennet was stationed at.

            "Yeah, but it's hard. I can't be watching all of these windows at once, and I can't be trying to download someone's preferences while using up this tiny bandwidth to keep these other windows open… If I was at home I'd have a faster connection…"

            "Maybe I could help you look faster," Zee offered. Ro saw his wrist flick upwards, as if he was about to shoot out his computer cable to connect himself to Bucky's computer to search through the windows.

She quickly smacked his wrist. "Not here!" she hissed.

He'd almost forgotten that there were other people in the room. "Maybe I could come back tonight while you're sleeping?" he suggested.

"You could, if Ro didn't mind being alone for the night," he mocked her.

She glared at him evilly. She would have been prepared to spend a night on her own if she hadn't been overhearing some of the evil things that the boys and Mandy behind her were planning to do to someone in their sleep. But, Zee's freedom was far more important… "That'd be fine with me," she conceded.

"I also should look up fencing some time…" Zee added.

"Tonight would be a good time for you to get that done as well," Ro commented. Yes, she'd have to do without Zee for a night for the sake of a better cause.

"I hate to break things up because you guys seem to be enjoying each other's company, but we need to leave in time so that we can make it back before dinner," Mandy interrupted.

"Has it been that long?" Ro asked. It seemed like they'd been there for less than an hour.

"It's been two hours, nine minutes and…" Zee started to say before Ro silenced him with an icy glare. She couldn't have him spouting out such information like a computer.

            "Okay, it has been a while…" Ro sighed. She knew that they hadn't spent that long talking to Bucky, so hiking around the outskirts of camp, and waiting for Bucky's cabin to come and escort them must have taken longer than she'd thought.

            With Bucky and his friends on their radios again, keeping an eye out for counselors from cabin to cabin they were successfully escorted back to the trail where they'd be able to hike back into the girl's camp as if nothing had happened.  "See you tonight!" Mandy waived, then turned to start hiking back.

            "Tonight?" Zee asked.

            "Yeah, we're going to TP Redwood. Only, we're going to do a much better job of it than what they did to us."

            "Aren't you still tired?" he asked her.

            "Maybe I'll take a nap after dinner or something, but right now I'm really excited so I don't feel tired."

            "If you go out, I'd like to go with you," Ro commented. If they would be getting revenge on Redwood, she'd love to be a part of it.

            "Anxious to see that guy again? You two seemed to be hitting it off very well, though. You dating him?" she asked.

            Ro laughed slightly to herself. It was hard to tell if Mandy was teasing, or prying for information. Either way, she felt uncomfortable by the joke or the question.

             "Ro would never date anyone like him!" Zee spoke out a little rashly. Both Mandy and Ro were shocked by his assertiveness. It was their shocked faces that let him know that he'd spoken out of turn. But… it'd seemed to him like Mandy had been implying that Ro might have a level of romantic interest in Bucky… It was a topic of conversation that he couldn't keep quiet about or let her talk blasphemy about. Or was it really ridiculous to think that Ro might be interested in Bucky more than as just being friends? Sure he was younger than her, but age differences were becoming a thing of the past. It might be possible that Ro could feel something for him, even though it seemed like she tried hard to avoid such impressions whenever she was around him, but maybe by denying her feelings, she was trying to hide her true feelings? He could only wonder how humans managed to deal with such emotions on a real scale, rather than on a theological level. For Ro's sake (and his) he hoped that he hadn't offended her with his comment, and that Mandy had only been joking.

            He looked to Ro to see what she had to say in reply. At first she'd been shocked that he'd been so assertive about something that didn't necessarily concern himself. She'd known that he'd always been adamant to do the "right" thing and to help others out, but was very surprised to hear him speak out so defensively about such a trivial thing. But, then she couldn't help but start laughing. He was even being over protective of her feelings! It was cute.

            "Did I say something wrong?" he asked sheepishly.

            "No, you actually said what I was going to say!" he laughed even louder.

            Mandy smiled and started laughing as well. Things had been feeling rather awkward until Ro had started laughing. "Too young and immature for you then?" she asked, turning the whole matter into a joke.

            "How about too short?" Ro added.

            Zee didn't make any more comments, but contemplated on how grateful that he hadn't offended Ro.

            They arrived at the mess hall feeling rather hungry. While Mandy had brought the food with them they hadn't bothered to eat any of it.  It made being last in line for dinner seem even longer, and the fact that they didn't get to be first in line, even worse. "Redwood's going to pay…" Mandy continued to mutter under her breath.  Ro was now certain that the competitiveness of the campers was being taken to an unhealthy level.

            Since they'd had a long time to wait before getting dinner, someone at their table had introduced "the cup passing game" to make the time go by faster.  It was fairly easy to catch onto, and anyone who had a cup in front of them could play. The game didn't have any winners, but was a test to see how long it could be played. The game consisted of drumming rhythmic beats on the cup and table, intermixed with clapping, and stomping the cup on the table, then deftly flipping the cup over in the person's hands, while smoothly turning it over to the person on their right. This continued in a circle around the table, creating a rhythmic pattern of sounds. The game progressed by having to do the rhythms faster until someone lost their grip on the cup and knocked it over, breaking the continuous flow of cups around the table and ending the game.

            The game started out slow while everyone learned the movements but by the time they were called for dinner, they'd managed to send the cups around the table at least 3 times before someone messed up and they had to start over.  While the game did look catchy, none of the other campsites could participate they'd already filled their cups with water or juice, making them unable to be played with. Enviously to everyone else, this was a game that for tonight, was only for the Laurel campers.

            After dinner, everyone headed to their campsites to get their flashlights, then headed over to the group fireside. There would be two skits performed this night, meaning that they wouldn't have as much time for individual campsite firesides as yesterday as things would run longer for this campfire.   The camp director opened the fireside by welcoming everyone, reviewing kapers, as if someone had forgotten since she'd mentioned it last night, then by reminding the girls on only taking 15 minutes showers. While no one's clothes had been stolen, complaints that people were taking too long had reached her attention. "I'm sure it's Redwood again, "Mandy whispered to them.

            Other than the fact that they'd been really rude to them on the first day here, and that they'd taken a long time in the showers, and that they'd  TP'd their campsite this morning, Zee hadn't found any real reason to continue to dislike them as much as everyone else seemed to hate them.  Because of their own snobbery, they were doing well to avoid contact with everyone else which didn't create any problems for him or Ro. If they kept their distance, he saw no problem in keeping theirs.

            "You don't think we're being too judgmental of them, do you?" Zee asked.

            "They're not being as rude this year as in past years, but I strongly feel that they deserve every prank they get."

            "But, we're not taking things too seriously, are we?" he asked.

            "I'm sure it's all in good fun, Zee," Ro tried to assure him, though she was thinking the same things as he was. Pranks were a part of camp. But, if they weren't mature enough to take one, such as getting TP'd, did they deserve to be playing them on other people?

            The first skit sucked. There was no other way to describe it. There was no creativity, and Mandy even made the comment that the exact same skit had been done last year. "It'd sucked last year too!" she added.  It was one of those skits, where even though you hadn't seen it before, you could predict the punch line—which wasn't funny to begin with.

            The second skit was a little better. The campsite had decided to take the path of "drama" rather than comedy, and had created a theater production where they made up lines for a made up Shakespearian-type play and spoke in ridiculous British accents. While the whole play was lacking in about every aspect, the ridiculous accents, and over dramatized acting, as well as the fact that they were making a mockery of classical literature made it fairly entertaining. Ro didn't blame them though for only having a day to prepare such an act.  Even though she didn't really know what their skit was going to be exactly, she was sure it was going to be better.

             "Well, that was a little lacking. But you can't blame them. They only had a day to prepare," Mandy commented as they headed back to camp.  "Ours is going to be good, though."

            "Have you started on your sword yet?" Ro asked.

            "No, I haven't had time to find a stick. Been with you guys all day, remember?"

            "I guess that makes sense," Ro trailed off. She hated it when she blurted out obvious things. If only she thought about it for one more second she might have realized this, and have not discredited her intelligence.

            "I was thinking I'd look for one tomorrow when it's light out."

            "Sounds like a good plan," Zee agreed. However, he was imagining himself going out in the dark with Ro tonight looking for sticks with his night vision.

            They reached their campsite, where Ro was about to grab her showering items when Mandy stopped her as she was about to grab her pajamas. "You don't want to put those on," she warned her. "If you're coming to TP with us in the middle of then night you won't want to do it in those. They'll get dirty, and it's going to be colder tonight than last night. You're not going to want to change out of your pajamas at 4:00 in the morning. And even if you did want to, it'd make too much noise."

            "Thanks for the warning," Ro said, leaving her clean pajamas in her bag.

            It didn't matter to Zee one way or the other. He could silently change his hologram whenever he wanted to.  Ro still insisted on showering, to at least get rid of the dirt layer that had accumulated today, even if she was only going to put on her dirty clothes again.

She knew that it was going to be hard to fall asleep as she was excited about getting up early in the morning to do a raid on Redwood with Mandy and Bucky's cabin. The only thing she worried about was that if there were too many of them they would make too much noise and wake the Redwood girls up. Or what if they were expecting them to seek revenge and stayed up all night long, waiting for them to sneak up on them. Either way they'd suffer from lack of sleep or having to clean up the toilet paper the next morning.

She felt the net hammock sink lower as more weight was added. It was only Zee, climbing up as well. "You really going to go over to Bucky's tonight?" she asked.

"I thought we'd planned on it. Is something wrong?" he asked. There was a deliberate hint of concern in his voice. Was Ro having second thoughts? All she had to do was show a little regret in the plan and he'd change his mind in an instant to stay with her for the night, even if it was as simple as watching out for her while she went TPing.

"No, just making sure," she said optimistically.  She'd just been asking a simple question. He'd gotten himself worked up over nothing. 

"Mandy said it was going to be colder tonight. Are you warm enough?" he asked.

"I didn't think we brought any extra blankets…" she commented.

No, they hadn't. He cursed himself for having not brought any extra, though he didn't entirely blame himself entirely s it hadn't been on the list.

"Here, I've got an idea," he said, sitting upright in his sleeping bag, then climbing out of it. He began to unzip it.

"What are you doing?" Ro asked him. She then hissed in a quieter voice. "You are not going to give me your sleeping bag and sleep with nothing! That would just be screaming "I'm a robot!"

"Unzip your sleeping bag," he instructed her, ignoring her comment. He knew that humans wouldn't' be spend the night uncovered, so he couldn't appear to do so.

She was beyond arguing. She climbed out of her sleeping bag and unzipped it, wondering what it was that he had in mind. He took her sleeping bag, and found the zipper. He then held both sleeping bags face to face, and zipped them up together as one large sleeping bag. It was now queen-sized rather than twin sized.  "Climb in," he offered, while climbing in at the same time.

"I'll turn up my internal heaters if I sense a decrease in the temperature outside. And, if necessary—I can open up my heat shield."

"I wouldn't risk it, even if we have the sleeping bags to shield outside viewers."

She turned over on her side to face Zee. He had a blank expression on his face as if he didn't know what to make of the situation. He'd just placed himself and Ro alone in the same sleeping bag. "You know I'd never let you get away with this if it weren't for the fact that you're wearing that silly hologram," she teased him.

It certainly had to be the fact that he looked like a girl that she would allow herself to sleep in such a close vicinity to him. It was okay for best friends to sleep this closely, but not if they were of the opposite sex. Still, as she closed her eyes, she didn't see a girl next to her, but Zee. In her mind she saw him dressed pajamas, looking at her while she slept, yet being very careful to keep his distance from her.  She smiled when she envisioned Zee wearing a real pair of pajamas, but her smile lessened when she thought of the absurdity of the idea. Since when would Zee ever need to wear clothes, or actually need to sleep? Still… what if one day it was possible. And who was to say what was sane and what was not?

Zee monitored the temperature outside. It was indeed colder than the night before. He constantly scanned over Ro's body. If she showed any sign of being cold he would immediately turn up his heaters. And if those weren't enough he'd use the heater inside his chest, despite what Ro had said about someone overseeing it.

The night was quiet, until 3:45 when he heard quiet sounds from movement inside of Mandy's tent. He had to admire her for her stamina. She'd done the same thing last night, and now she was carrying on her lack of sleep from the day before as well.  She didn't awake anyone from any of the other tents this time, but waited in her tent for a while. Apparently she was getting the toilet paper ready for tonight, and was inflating her mattress for when she returned. Then, the zipper to her tent began to inch down. She quietly put on her shoes, and came over to their net.

Zee lowered his head even more when he saw her coming closer, and pretended to be asleep. He hadn't thought of how Mandy was planning on waking them up, but would make things really easy on her as he was just pretending to be asleep.

Mandy's idea to wake them up was to poke the underside of their sleeping bags with a stick as she wasn't going to shout their names and couldn't let her self up to their net.

He couldn't feel the stick pressing itself into his  back, but knew from the sound, and the slight movement of the sleeping bag underneath him that that's what she was doing. He quietly sat up, pretending to blink, then looked to see who it was curiously.

He looked down at Mandy and nodded, then turned to wake Ro up.

She'd been sleeping peacefully until she was woken up by someone gently shaking her shoulder. "Ro, it's time," Zee whispered quietly.

"It's not morning," she yawned.

"No. I thought you were going to go out with Mandy. She's waiting."

"Oh! Right!"  Ro said sitting up quickly.

Mandy didn't immediately silence her, as it would make noise itself if she were to say anything, but made a signal with her hands that Ro was being a little loud.

As Ro climbed out of her sleeping bag she could feel the cold that Mandy had mentioned, and that Zee had protected her against. She was almost ready to forget the whole thing and tell her to go on without her just so that she could stay in her warm sleeping bag. However, no sooner had she sat up did Mandy toss her a roll of toilet paper.

Barely awake, Ro somehow managed to catch it. She was becoming more and more awake as the excitement of what they were going to do filled her. She dropped the ladder down, and carefully climbed down, with Mandy holding it for her at the base.

"Ready?" she asked.

"You bet," Ro replied.

"The boys will be waiting by the dumpsters on this edge of the camp. We'll meet them there before heading back to Redwood."

"Are you sure? What if they aren't there?"

"I don't think they'd stand us up like this, but it's always a possibility. If they aren't there then it will be just you, me, and Zee ."

"Actually, I might pass this one up. I've got some business elsewhere to attend to," Zee chimed in. He'd been so quiet Ro hadn't heard him come down from the net.

"Making secret plans without us?" Mandy pouted, but made it obvious that she wasn't offended.

"Nothing big," Zee chimed.

"Well let's go. We've already been too noisy. On our way out, no talking, silent footsteps. We'll be walking in our socks. Leave your shoes behind. I'll give you hand signals on when we move it. And whatever you do, don't laugh. Nothing gives you away more than laughing. If they wake up, you are to duck behind a tree and wait at least ten minutes before making a move again. If you immediately run away, they'll definitely know someone was there."

"Okay, I think we can easily use common sense to figure that out," Ro chimed.

Mandy didn't reply, but pointed with her finger that they were to move forward. They quietly made their way out of the camp, past all of the tents with sleeping girls in them. Being new as this prank stuff, every time a girl rolled over in her sleep Ro froze in her tracks, in fear that even someone from their own camp was about to wake. Mandy ignored these movements and the snoring sounds, as well as the occasional mumble from a sleep talker. People usually slept uneasily in a new environment which lead to lots of tossing and turning in their sleep, so these movements were to be disregarded.

As far as Ro could tell, no one was waiting for them at the dumpsters. They'd been stood up. The boys hadn't come. Zee knew better. "They're hiding," he whispered.

"Quilted with aloe vera," Mandy spoke the password, announcing their presence.

Several boys stepped out from behind the trashcan, while two poked their heads out from under the lid of the large dumpster bin. If their noise didn't wake up Redwood, surely their stench would.

They crawled out of the dumpster, being care careful when lowering the lid again. Ro was just grateful that Bucky had had enough sense not to be one of the people who had gone trash diving.

"You sure you'll be fine?" Zee asked one more time.

"Yeah, you go on ahead. I'll scream if anything goes terribly wrong," Ro assured him.

So this was it. Zee sought out Bucky amidst the boys. It was very hard as most were wearing dark clothing with ski masks on.  He found Bucky by analyzing the height of each boy until he found one that matched Bucky's exactly.

"Is your computer all set up?" he asked, taking Bucky aside for a private word.

"Yeah. But there isn't much internet surveillance you can do. Most of them turned off their computers at 5:00 this afternoon. Bennet isn't going to have a graveyard shift, so if there are any on, you can eliminate them anyway. The files are all up though if you want to look through the data for any clues," he tipped Zee off.  "And watch out for the trip wire. You don't want to wake the whole camp up on your way over," he added.

"Thanks," Zee said. He then broke away from the group and headed off towards the boy's camp. His night vision was on, as well as his infrared scanners.  He just hoped that Ro didn't get caught on her adventure. When he was sure no one was looking he resumed his regular appearance. It would be better to appear to be a boy while in the boy's camp than a girl—and he was beginning to realize that he actually did prefer to be in a masculine form rather than a feminine one.

Mandy quietly led the group back down the main road, towards their campsite. She stopped the group, so that she could go back to her tent and begin to disperse her toilet paper collection among the party. Needless today, everyone had an armful, especially since the boys had brought some of their own. Mandy carried the toilet back and forth from her tent rather than having everyone group around it, causing a commotion.

When each person was well supplied they continued down the road in small groups.  There was very little moonlight, which was bad in that that they had a hard time seeing where they were going without flashlights, but was good as it provided more cover for them. Once they came close to Redwood's camp, Mandy issued more specific instructions. "Make it pretty, but messy."

Apparently they'd already discussed who was in charge of which area of the camp, as the boys already knew where to go. Ro found herself wondering what to do with her self until Mandy tugged her arm, and guided her around the side of the camp. 

They approached the first tent. Everyone was sleeping rather heavily, judging by the snores. Mandy showed Ro what to do with her first roll of toilet paper. They were draping big loopy ribbons around the tent, with big toilet paper bows on the corners. On the tents that had poles, they'd wrap the toilet paper around, striping them like a candy cane. What the boys were doing was far more evil. They were tossing the rolls high into the trees where no would could reach to be able to pull it down. It was evil indeed. Redwood hadn't been this mean to them. They'd merely run the rolls through their campsite, which being easy for them to do, had made it easy to clean up. By spending the extra time to wrap it around the tent poles they were making sure that they had a miserable time unwrapping it, or collecting all of the small pieces from where they ripped it off.  Whenever Ro ran out of toilet paper, there always seemed to be another one available.

Inspired by the devilishness of the entire act, Ro felt inspired to criss-cross the toilet paper in front of the door to one of the tents. While they could easily rip through it when getting out in the morning, the fact that when the opened their door in the morning and saw nothing but a wall of toilet paper would make it worth it.

Only once did it seem like someone had woken up during their prank, but it was only for a second, and the person immediately rolled over and went back to sleep. They were safe.

Around five fifteen in the morning, things began to get light out. They'd used up all of the toilet paper, and had sufficiently covered the Redwood camp in white streamers. With  the amount that Mandy had brought, and the extra rolls the boys provided they had at least four times more toilet paper than what Redwood had used on them. "Now, for the last touch," Mandy whispered. One of the boys produced a rolled up sign from under his shirt. Mandy placed it in the middle of the Redwood camp, weighting it with some rocks to make sure it didn't get carried away by a light wind. The sign read, "A job worth doing, is worth doing well."

They quietly turned around and headed back to their camp, their prank well accomplished. Their socks were black from having crept around in them all night.

"Hide your socks or rinse them out at least," Mandy warned them once they got back to camp. "They'll link you to the crime scene."

"What are you talking about? All of my socks look like this," Bucky wittily replied.

The group began to giggle, which they'd been suppressing for the entire night, but quickly quieted down.  They didn't mention anything about meeting again tomorrow or anything. Ro knew that if they had, they'd already discussed it this afternoon. Instead, they separated. Bucky and his friends began to make their way back to their camp while Mandy and Ro returned to their tents.

Ro was a little concerned when she got to the net and found that Zee wasn't back. She knew she didn't have to worry about him having fallen and broken his leg, but she couldn't help but worry that agents were hiding in Bucky's camp somewhere—waiting to find him alone.  

"Is Zee going to be back soon?" Mandy asked.

"I hope so," Ro replied, a sick feeling in her stomach welling up. "I'll leave the net down for h…" Ro said, stopping herself quickly. She'd almost said "him," "I'll leave the net down for her." She'd spent 3 days so far not having accidentally slipped up on his fake gender, now was not the time to mess up.

She tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. Until she knew he was safe she couldn't bring herself to fall asleep, and forget about him. She just lay there in her oversized sleeping bag, looking up into the trees above her, listening to the night sounds. But, as it was really cold, and most of a person's body heat is lost through their head, she pulled her head inside of the sleeping bag. She looked through the open end, but it was facing the wrong direction to see Zee coming. She'd have to listen carefully for him as he approached. She toyed with the idea of going out to check on him, but as it was getting closer to daylight, surely some of the early morning counselors would be waking up and would see her sneaking around. If he wasn't back by the time everyone else was waking up she'd have to go and look for him anyway, because otherwise she'd have to explain why he disappeared. Then he'd get in trouble for wandering around alone in the night.

She continued to wait, but the longer she waited, the warmer she became inside of her sleeping bag and the more heavy her eyelids started to feel.  "I'll just close my eyes for a sec. I'll still be able to hear him coming," she thought.


	5. Day 4

DAY 4

However, she awoke the next morning, with Zee (back in his girl appearance) was sitting near the edge of the net, looking rather placid. "How did things go last night?" he asked.

She sat up, scared out of her wits, but quickly calmed down. How could she have fallen asleep so carelessly! Even scarier--why she didn't wake up when he climbed up onto the net? She must really have been tired, or he was in the secret agent league for his stealth-ness. What hurt more was that she'd wanted to be there when he came back. What if he'd really been in trouble? How could she have allowed herself to have fallen asleep?

"When did you get back?" she demanded.

"A few minutes ago. I've been wandering around the camps, as if I'd already been up."

How clever he was. He didn't have to sneak back into his sleeping bag unnoticed. He just had to pretend that he'd gotten up really early and had already been dressed. But she would sure give him an earful for staying out so late and scaring her out of her wits by not at least letting her know that he was safe. "You could have told me you were back, at least! You were gone for some time," she said, a hint of anger in her voice. However, she found that she was so glad that he was back that she couldn't stay mad at him for long. He voice softened, "You had me worried."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you. I figured you'd be pretty tired."

"I tried to wait up for you, but I guess I fell asleep. I'd make a really lame night watchman, wouldn't I?"

"No, I'm sure you'd be a good watchman!" he insisted, trying to sound supportive, though she probably wouldn't make a good watchman.

"There's no reason to flatter me. I'd never top you," she laughed.

She climbed down from the net, and went inside of their tent to change into a different pair of clothes for the day. There was dew sticking to the tent walls making them rather heavy. Everything was damp. The cold air had condensed creating a light mist over everything. She could only imagine what it would do to their toilet paper. Zee had already changed his clothes from when he came back from the boy's camp. He couldn't wait for a chance to talk with Ro about what he'd found out on Bucky's computer, and to show-off the fencing choreographs he'd downloaded on the net as well.

Mandy pulled off another five minute routine to get dressed. Ro was surprised that she wasn't eager to get up and see the outraged faces of the Redwood girls when they woke up this morning. Strangely, there weren't many people at their campsite when they woke up. Everyone seemed to have vanished this morning. But where had they all gone? Were they still sleeping?

Regardless, everyone was still required to report to flag service before breakfast, so they headed out. Jennifer surprisingly wasn't even there to order the group out, or to make sure that everyone else had woken up and was getting dressed.

"Where is everyone?" Ro asked.

"Up ahead," Zee answered her question.

Apparently everyone had managed to find their way in front of Redwood's campsite to admire their handiwork. Even Zee was impressed. They'd really gone out on their TP job. Apparently no one was at the flag circle, but everyone had instead gathered at the Redwood campsite. The director was even here, and she did not look happy.

Among the crowd, Ro could see several of their fellow Laurel campers, and Jennifer. Jennifer appeared to have a grim expression on her face, as if she was not happy about the matter like the director wasn't, but the fact that she kept on having to turn from the crowd to conceal a "coughing" fit, was all to obvious that she was trying not to choke on her hysterical laughter. Ro knew that she was pleased with their work. Being a counselor, it was inappropriate for her to show it though.

Ro would have loved to just stand there and laugh, but there was a very serious mood lingering in the air that told her laughing was inappropriate at this point in time. Everyone was quiet, as the director glowered at the entire group of girls. It didn't matter that she didn't know who was responsible. Everyone was going to hear her scolding lecture.

Ro would have loved to feel guilty for their actions, if it wasn't for the fact that the Redwood girls looked like their heads would explode from their anger. The large knot in her stomach was also blemishing their victory. What if someone had seen them. What if they knew it was them? It didn't seem like the director was going to blow this off like a regular prank.

The toilet paper was a mess. The drapery and bows were still there, but several parts were clinging to the tents from the moisture, and other parts looked like a soggy mess. It was perfect.

When it appeared that everyone was here, rather than at the flag circle, the director addressed the group. "I am not happy about this," she spat.

"What does she care?" Ro thought, but didn't dare whisper it to Zee. Now was not the time for sarcasm.

"Cleaning up dry toilet paper is simple enough, but this is horrific!" She said, referring to the wet toilet paper. "Not to mention, this is a private park, which means that we can not just leave the toilet paper in the trees to eventually disintegrate or to be blown away. If we can't figure out how to get it down, a professional tree climber will have to be brought in. And I assure you," she added more coldly, "that I will not be footing the bill."

This was a serious matter in deed. Ro had no idea how anyone could reach up into the trees to get the toilet paper down. She hadn't planned on the fact that they'd have to worry about cleaning it up when they'd been throwing it up there. Actually, she hadn't thrown any of it into the trees. It'd all been Bucky and his cabin.

"Also, should there be any damage done to these girl's tents, and they should need to be replaced, proper compensation will also have to be provided."

"Hold on," Jennifer interrupted the counselor. "I think that's a little extreme for a harmless prank. I'm sure the girls who did this didn't know that it was going to be damp this morning, or that it would cause such a big mess."

"That doesn't mean that they're excused from accepting responsibility for the consequences on their actions, regardless of whether they knew it would happen or not. These girls have the right to be compensated for the damage of their tents."

"What damage?" another counselor asked. The tents looked fine to her except that they were covered in damp toilet paper.

One of the Redwood girls shouted, "It's covered in wet toilet paper! How can we ever clean it all off? They're going to be covered in toilet paper fibers forever!"

Jennifer wisely commented, "You could wait for the sun to come out this afternoon and dry the toilet paper out. That would also make it a lot easier to clean up. Then you could just brush the tents off of all of the dried fibers."

The girl stepped back. She'd really been hoping to see someone pay for this, but with Jennifer's solution, her grievance was indisputably resolved. Toilet paper fibers had been a weak damage claim to begin with, and now Jennifer had completely squashed their case. Rather than being grateful that their tents were no longer ruined, they were upset that the severity of the situation had been decreased.

"And…" Jennifer added, picking up a piece of toilet paper that was littering the ground. "Isn't this the biodegradable brand of toilet paper? It's made from hemp, isn't it?" she clarified.

Everyone held their breath, as Jennifer turned the toilet paper over in her hands. As everyone leaned closer for a better look it became clear that it was indeed. They'd all seen the commercials for it. After it'd been scientifically proven that hemp was not related to drug use as marijuana was, it was introduced into the commercial market, with tight legislation on who could grow it, and where. Since then, hemp was becoming the substitute for cotton and most other paper products. Hemp was especially ideal for growing, as unlike cotton, it didn't suck the soil of all the nutrients but actually added back to it. Toilet paper was just one more invention that they'd created out of this miracle plant. But, it was a little pricy… Had Mandy really spent that much money on biodegradable environmental safe toilet paper?

It was in the daylight that Ro noticed that there were several colors of toilet paper. The toilet paper that the boys had thrown up into the trees was the hemp toilet paper, while the pink, blue, and peach toilet paper was just regular generic brands that Mandy had bought. And, yes, they were colored in accordance with the camp rules. Too bad she hadn't bothered to incorporate the colored toilet paper into their designs. It'd been too dark to see where she was walking, much less what color of toilet paper she was holding.

"Well… I guess it's not as bad as we thought then…" the director stammered. "But we still can't have it in the trees all day long! Someone still has to clean this up!"

"It's Redwood's campsite, isn't it?" someone spoke up from the crowd. Everyone turned to see who it was that had said such a thing. It certainly wasn't a counselor. No one could find out where the voice was coming from as the person who'd actually made the comment was looking around, just like everyone else, trying not to incriminate themselves by pretending that they didn't know who'd said it either.

"They will certainly doing their part of the clean up, but I strongly feel that the person who thought it'd be funny to throw it up into the trees should be responsible for helping them to get it down."

Everyone grew quiet: having to clean up after your own prank took all of the fun out of it. "Now, because it has come to my attention that the toilet paper is biodegradable, I will not be calling a tree climber if you can't get it all down. I am requiring that the person responsible for this step forward, under no financial obligations, step forward so that they can help out."

"Like anyone would convict themselves," Ro thought.

No one stepped forward. It would be insane to admit that they'd been responsible for such a project. Who knows how miserable Redwood would make the rest of their stay at camp if they admitted that they'd done it.

"You don't have to worry about any further punishments from me. I wont' call your parents. All that I'm asking is that whoever is responsible take responsibility in the clean up."

"We didn't make them clean up our mess," Ro thought.

"Do I have to take away everyone's free time in order to come over here and clean this up?" the director threatened.

Ro looked at Mandy. Should they step forward? They weren't going to be in any trouble. All they had to do was help to clean it up. And everyone else would be mad at them if they had to lose their free time cleaning it up. It wouldn't help their campsite out either if they lost time to rehearse their skit. She looked at Zee, whom she knew was more than willing to turn himself in for her. She wouldn't have him do such a thing. He needed to teach the group how to fence for their skit. She reached out and held her arm in front of him to make sure that he didn't step forward.

Ro looked over at Mandy. They'd have to turn themselves in. They were about to take a step forward when a voice from the crowd shouted, "Okay, alright! I did it!"

A young girl stepped forward. She looked very intimidated and was nervously twisting her fingers. What was she doing? She hadn't been with them when they'd gone TPing. Did someone else come to add to their work after they left? No… It was all of their toilet paper, their bows and drapery… Their mess.

Another voice spoke up, "Me too." This time an older girl stepped forward. Neither of them were even from their campsite!

"I helped out too!" a third voice chimed.

Suddenly, every single girl seemed to be he shouting, "I did it!" "No! It was me!" People were taking claims on their work saying that they'd done different colors, or that they'd been responsible for the bows or the drapery.

Ro looked at Mandy and smiled. Then together they joined the throng shouting, "It was me! I did it!"

The director was shocked. How could all of these girls done this? No, it was more obvious than that. They were covering up for the real culprits, regardless of whether they even knew who they were or not. Well, if they were all admitting to it, they'd all have to clean it up.

"How many of these people did you go out with last night?" Zee leaned over to ask Ro.

"None of them," Ro replied. She made a mental note to do something special for the first little girl who'd spoken up, trying to take the blame for their act.

"Why do they all want to admit to helping out then?"

"Sometimes, Zee, you gotta stand up for other people."

Ro looked over at Jennifer, she nearly doubled over laughing. The counselors around her were trying to hid her behind their backs so the director wouldn't see her in her laughing fit. They themselves were trying to suppress giggles.

No one bothered with the flag ceremony that morning, but went straight to breakfast. The flag was raised later by the girls who had signed up to do it, but no one was there to notice. There wasn't any competition, but people just got in line as they pleased. Zee followed Ro through the line, getting a plate of food today rather than projecting a holographic one. No one bothered with the cup passing game, but immediately started eating.

"So how did things go last night for you, Zee?" Mandy asked curiously.

He looked up a little surprised. For some reason it felt strange was someone was actually asking him a question. "Very well," he simply said. He didn't want to go into the details with her though. "I found out a lot of information."

"You're not going to tell me what you were up to though?" Mandy asked slyly. It sounded like she thought that he was doing something other than what he'd said he'd done.

"I was researching information online…" he trailed off.

"Is that all though? Zee, I think you're holding out on me… Did you go see someone that I'd like to meet?" she asked quietly.

Poor Zee, Ro decided she'd have to save him from this awkward moment. "Zee actually was over there looking up fencing techniques for our skit," she replied in the same low voice. They didn't want anyone overhearing them, especially when they talked about being over at the boy's camp.

"But you didn't have to sneak over there in the middle of the night to do that… Why didn't you just look when we were over there yesterday?"

"Bucky was on his computer then. Zee likes to work in private. She can't stand having people watch over her shoulder. So we agreed that she'd use his computer when they were here with us."

Ro was glad that they'd been talking in low voices as Jennifer suddenly was standing behind them. "Hello ladies, mind if I join you?' she asked, placing her plate on the table in between Mandy and Ro's plate. They had to scoot over a little to give her enough room to sit down.

"Sure," Mandy said cheerfully, although it was obvious Jennifer had already invited herself to sit with them. The counselors usually sat at their table, so this wasn't out of the ordinary, but for Jennifer to specifically invite herself into their conversation meant that she wanted to talk with them rather than finding an open spot at the table.

"What can we do for you?" Zee asked politely. He knew that she was here to talk to them.

"I just want to say, that I'm proud of you," she said looking at Ro, Zee, and Mandy. Somehow she knew they were the ones who were really responsible.

"What are you talking about?" Mandy tried to asked innocently, wondering how she'd found out. How many more people knew it was them?

Zee figured it out. "I was wondering why you didn't stop us. You wanted us to do it," he spoke up. The first night here she'd woken up when Redwood had come over to look for their towels. She was a really light sleeper. Of course she'd have heard them packing off. Only, she hadn't done anything to stop them, but had let them think that she didn't know what was going on.

Jennifer winked at him, but put her finger to her lips.

"How do you know that?" Ro asked.

"I'll explain later."

Jennifer continued to praise them, "That hemp toilet paper was a good idea. Who brought it?" she asked.

"Our accomplices," Mandy replied. "I just had the colored stuff."

Jennifer was beaming with pride, "Good work ladies."

She didn't stay at their table much longer, but ate a few bites then got up and left. "She is so cool," Ro commented.

"Jennifer is the best," Mandy agreed.

Ro looked at her plate. She'd hardly eaten anything because she'd been talking so much. She turned to take a bite of her quiche but, suddenly felt a shower of food scraps raining down her back. There was milk dripping down her collar. She slowly turned her head, chunks of slimy eggs falling out of her hair and shoulders.

"Oh I'm so sorry!" Cynthia said. He apology sounded too honeyed to be sincere. She'd purposely "tripped" on her way to the trashcan and had accidentally spilt it down Ro's back. But… if she really tripped, the food would have hit Ro from the side, rather than directly down her back. The food had lightly splashed Mandy, and while might have missed Zee, he quickly added a little food spots to his hologram to make it seem like some of it had hit him.

"Auuugh…"Ro moaned, disgustedly looking at the mess all over her. Surprisingly, they only had the select attention of the few people around them. Ro would have thought that such an action would have drawn the entire attention of the mess hall. Surely the director or another counselor had seen this egregious "accident" and would scold Cynthia for it.

"Oooh… you may want to take a shower," she said coldly, then began to walk away from Ro, leaving them mess for her to clean up by herself.

"I was thinking the same thing," Zee commented, as he surreptitiously extended his foot behind him, right in front of where she was walking. He had his full plate ready to accidentally fall out of his hands over her while she tripped over his extended foot.

The mess that Ro was covered in was nothing compared to the mess that Cynthia looked like. "WHY YOU!" she ranted, pointing her finger at Ro, Mandy and Zee.

"What is the meaning if this?"

It was the director, and she was not happy. Two incidences in one day would drive anyone over their regular tolerance limit.

"Oh it's nothing!" Mandy quickly spoke up. "Both of them were getting up to put their dishes away and they bumped into each other, spilling their plates all over each other."

The director looked at the table where Ro had just been sitting. She would have sworn that Ro had had her plate there when she'd come to see what the mess was, but now the place setting was empty. Zee put on an innocent face, as he picked up Ro's fork, pretending it was his own. The instant Mandy had started telling the lie, he'd quickly pulled Ro's plate in front of him in a deft movement too quick for the director to have noticed.

It would be wrong to punish these girls for a simple accident. "Go get cleaned up,' she told them.

"What about the mess?" Ro asked.

"Whoever has breakfast kapers can take care of it."

"That's Redwood," Mandy remarked.

"Then when you're cleaned up, you can come back here and help out your fellow campers, Cynthia," the director finished, then walked off.

Ro was sure that things would be getting much worse by the end of the week. But, for the time being, she thought that Laurel was ahead.

Mandy hurried to put her plate as well as Ro's into be washed, then followed her back to the campsite to get some clean clothes. There was no one in the showers as everyone was still eating breakfast, or was on their way to clean up their campsite. Still, they went to the far showers by the group campfire so they could have some privacy to talk in normal voices.

Ro talked with Zee and Mandy through the shower door. "Why do you think she did that?"

"I'll bet she just assumed that you were the one who had TP'd them."

"Yeah, but you helped out too!"

"I got covered too, but I'm just going to change my shirt. What about you Zee?"

On their way back to the campsite, he'd removed the particles of food on his shirt from his hologram. "I'm good. I missed the bulk of it."

"So how did Jennifer know it was us?" Ro asked.

"She's a light sleeper. She heard us get up like how she was able to hear Redwood when they came over on the first night, but she didn't do anything to stop us because she wanted us to TP them."

"You know… If Cynthia heard us talking to Jennifer that explain be how she knew it was us…"

"I'm sure that's it. But I think she just hates us to begin with."

"It's like this every year though, so it's not just you."

"I'm just worried what their plans for revenge are."

"Whatever it is, I don't think it can be worse than what we did to them. Everyone at camp was there to see it!"

"Yeah, and everyone's going to clean it up…"

"Oh, it'll go by quickly if we all help out."

"How are we going to get the toilet paper out of the trees?"

"I'm actually not sure," Mandy admitted. "I was thinking that we might throw rocks at the tree branches to see if we could shake it down, but I already know it's a ridiculous idea. The toilet paper isn't going to come down that easily…"

"What if you aimed for the toilet paper itself?" Ro asked.

"No one here could throw a rock that high, and with good accuracy."

"I can," Zee spoke up. He wasn't going to commented that he could probably shoot his hand up to grab the rolls, or that if he extended his arms and legs he might be able to reach up there or lift someone up there.

"You? Is this a hidden talent or something?" she asked.

"Zee just has a knack for it," Ro commented.

"If we could get a long pole we might be able to use it to get the toilet paper down…" he suggested.

"Yeah, but this camp doesn't do pole vaulting, and we don't have yards of duct tape to strap it together with."

"True," Zee agreed. Maybe he could sneak out with his car and buy some tubing or long poles at a store then?

Mandy changed the subject, "I'd like to tell the guys how well our prank went over, but we hadn't planned on meeting today, but tomorrow. Oh! I can't wait! This prank went over really well."

Ro didn't think that getting scolded by the director and having to help clean up the mess counted as "really well" but she would agree that this was a victory over Redwood.

When she was in her clean clothes they headed back to their campsite. They'd missed morning clean up, but were in time for the educational hour.

"Okay, today we're actually having lunch in our campsite. Now, I want it clearly under stood that our cooks are not responsible for the pre-assortment of food that has been dropped off for us to cook with. To be honest, the director just ordered a bunch of food that could be easily packaged, and was cheap and nutritional."

Whatever it was, it didn't sound tasty. "To be honest with you, if you want to cook it, it's fine by me. I'm not going anywhere near it though. It's my job to teach you how to care for yourselves and how to provide food for yourselves. Now, if this was truly about survival, they'd have me teach you how to hunt you own food, skin it, and cook it. But, they seem fit to say that if we can cook these hotdogs…" some of the girls looked offended as they actually liked hot dogs and Jennifer had just told them that their lunch was going to be really gross "—mind you they're not from a well-known company, and they're not 100 beef--" the girls immediately seemed less offended, "that it will prove that you can sufficiently provide for yourselves."

It didn't sound too bad, except for the part where no one knew the exact content of what was in the hotdogs… But if Jennifer wasn't' going to have them cook them what else did she have in mind? "To accompany our hotdogs, we have potatoes that look like they were hit by the blight. I think they were left in the sun a little too long… onions, and carrots. –I'm just curious who thought that this combination should go together, and why they didn't at least give us a tomato so we could make something like ketchup? For drinks, we have these convenient packages of hot chocolate powder."

This was going to be the worst lunch yet. Ro considered trying to do a religious fast until dinner. It didn't matter to Zee, he wouldn't be eating anything anyway, but he did worry about Ro… She looked disgusted with the meal.

"Now, if you think about the fact that the hotdogs were delivered here, that must mean that there's some store around in the area, so we're not completely stranded from civilization. Now… who has their phone with them?"

A dozen cellular phones were raised in the air. "I brought my phone, but I get lousy reception here!" the girl complained.

"So you all brought your phones, even though they have lousy reception. Did anyone bring money even though there's nothing to buy here?" Several more hands went up. "Good, good," Jennifer noted. "For those of you who didn't, I've got a small allowance to spend on you guys that's provided to me out of your registration fee."

But having money and a useless cell phone won't help us out very much, not will it" Jennifer sighed, then looked up eagerly. "But if we have aluminum foil to cook our hotdogs in we can twist it up to make a coil to help extend our antennas on our phones to increase signal strength. Silver, copper, and aluminum are all good conductors. If worse comes to worse I'm sure you could use your metal marshmallow sticks. Or you could just get a cell phone with satellite reception…" Jennifer said, producing her own phone.

She punched a button on her phone, and held it up to her ear, listening for someone to pick up on the other end. A voice answered and Jennifer's voice rose in pitch as she put on a polite voice to talk to the person on the end with, "Yes, Pizza House?" Shouts of joy went up among the girls. Jennifer waived her hand for them to be quiet while she talked on the phone. "Yes, do you deliver? Excellent. Now, hold on a sec," she said, covering the receiver with the palm of her hand. She spoke to the group. "Who wants cheese?" A few hands went up. "Now, who's going to steal a piece of cheese even though they'll opt for something else later?" A few hands went up. "Thanks for being honest," she said, then held the phone up to her ear again. "I'll take two medium cheese pizzas." She asked the group, "Pepperoni?" More hands went up. "One extra large pepperoni, and one medium." "Combination?--One small combination. Hawaiian?" No one wanted Hawaiian pizza. "Vegetarian?" A few hands went up. "And one small vegetarian. I'd also like 5 orders of crazy bread, and a two 12 flats of assorted sodas."

"Did I miss anyone?" she asked next. No one raised their hand. Ro had to admire how well Jennifer had handled the situation. They hadn't spent a long time arguing over what to get, and everyone seemed pleased with her decision to order pizza rather than to try to cook the hotdogs. "No that's all. Where do I want it delivered? Can you make it to the turn off for Camp Pico Blanco and Camp Hidden Falls?" she paused on the phone while she listened to the pizza delivery guy look up directions for the place. It seemed like he was a little unfamiliar with the area as Jennifer next commented, "Sure, I can just have someone meet you at the turn off." With that she settled things with the pricing, and hung up the phone, then began to divide the bill percentage.

The price was reasonable, so no one had to feel like they were emptying their wallet out for this service. For those who didn't bring enough, Jennifer was more than willing to cover their share. "What else am I going to spend this money on?" she asked. Someone quietly muttered, "A tree climber service." Everyone started laughing.

"Who wants to go meet the pizza delivery guy at the turn off of the main road? I should warn you, it's a little bit of a walk…"

"Ro and I can go," Zee offered. He looked over at Ro confidently. He was sure there was nothing that she could say to object to them helping out. Besides, it would be a great chance to talk with her alone. "I actually came with a car."

"Great! I'll transfer you enough creds so that you can pay the pizza guy when you meet him there."

"I've got enough creds in my account to cover the bill. You can pay me when we get back with the bill. I don't want you to transfer me the money with the possibility that the pizza guy may get lost and never show up."

"Good thinking. Be sure to add in the delivery tip when you bring back the bill. He said it'd be about forty five minutes until he got here, so you have some time before you need to leave."

"Do you need me to come?" Mandy asked. She didn't sound hurt at not being included in the group, but thought she'd ask.

"I think we're good," Ro said. She could tell that Zee had planned it this way so that he'd be able to talk to her. She'd been wondering how they'd get a moment to themselves alone as well. "Her car is kind of small so it might get a little cramped if we end up having to bring in all of those pizzas."

"That's fine then."

Jennifer addressed the group again, "Now, as it will be some time before we get to eat, we have some free time to finish our swords and possibly start putting together our skit after lunch."

"We still need to find our sticks, don't we?" Ro said to Zee.

"Do you have a sword yet?" he asked Mandy.

"Actually, my friend Lisa started one, but wanted to start over, so she gave me her half-finished one. I was just going to finish it and use hers."

"Okay, well then we'll be stick scouting. See you in a few minutes," Ro said. She then linked her arm around Zee's. "Let's go," she said, casually pulling him away from the group.

"Where do we look?" he asked.

"I thought I saw some on that trail Mandy took us on, but we couldn't stop to check."

"Should we tell someone where we're going?"

"Nah, we won't be gone that long."

They casually began to walk down the path they'd gone down yesterday. There was no one around as everyone was still at their campsites preparing their lunches. At the fork in the road, they turned left. Ro began to look for the long sticks she'd seen strewn about. "How's this one?" she asked, holding it up for Zee to see. However, as she was holding it up, it snapped in half as it was completely rotted through. Disgusted she dropped the stick in front of her, "Ewww. Ewww. Eww…" she chanted.

Zee looked at the stick, then at the large tree branch that had dropped from the tree nearby them. While the stick was rotting, the dead tree branch seemed fairly healthy.

The hologram on his arm disappeared, revealing a metal arm underneath. A compartment on his arm opened up and a large circular saw began radiating open, then spinning. In a few seconds, which cedar chips flying everywhere, Zee held two large thick branches in his hand. He dropped one branch, then in four swift movements trimmed the branch down neatly into a long skinny rectangular block—perfect for whittling.

He was halfway through the other one when Ro stopped him. "Zee! What if someone's looking!"

He quickly scanned around the perimeter. There wasn't anyone hiding through the trees now as there hadn't been when he first checked before cutting off the limbs. "No one's here," he said simply.

"But what if they come looking because they hear a mechanical saw in the middle of the forest?"

"I thought we'd be out of hearing."

"You think we're out of hearing, but do you know for sure?"

"We can't hear them, can we?"

"It doesn't mean that they're not playing it quiet or that they're not spying on us."

"Why would they want to do that?"

"Maybe because they're mad at us for TPing them?"

"I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time."

"How about you just save the special effects next time?"

"Sorry…" he apologized again.

"You apologize too much. Just don't worry about it, and don't do it again."

"Okay."

"Now, let's hurry back to camp."

"We'll have to whittle them down

"It's too risky for me, but if you're sure, then you might as well start what

you finished." In two more swipes he was finished with trimming the branches.

"I'm ready to head back now," he announced.

"They're going to ask where we got these perfectly squared off pieces of wood," Ro commented.

"But they're not perfectly squared," Zee protested.

Upon a closer look Ro realized that Zee had kept the naturally perfect arch of the branch intact while squaring it off. It also wasn't complete square but was slightly rectangular. She could practically see the curved sword that was concealed inside of the block shaped form. It was as if it was just waiting to be carved out.

"Just round off the corners a little and it should be good."

"Wow!" Where'd you find those?" Mandy exclaimed when they returned to camp.

"Along the trail towards the waterfalls," Ro replied simply. Buy now they figured that it was time for them to head to their car so that they could meet the pizza delivery guy. Zee went to fetch his car keys from the tent then headed off down the main road with Ro towards the back of the mess hall where they'd parked their car. Luckily no one had blocked it in. He unlocked the car with a push of the button on his key ring, then climbed into the driver's seat.

"So what'd you find on Bucky's computer?" Ro asked Zee, as he started the car.

"Nothing," he replied, pulling out of the parking space.

Nothing? He certainly didn't need to have waited this long to tell her that! "Are you sure? Maybe he just wasn't online, or maybe Bucky accidentally already eliminated him? What if he switched headquarters?"

"I've already thought about it, Ro. I scanned through all of the files. Nothing fits with his personal database."

"So that's it? Game over?"

"Not quite. It's my belief, and Bucky agrees with me, that perhaps as Bennet is a superior agent, his computer files might be under a higher security clearance."

"And how are we supposed to find out how to get into those?"

"Bucky's working on hacking his way around the system now. He's actually said that it would be a 'challenge' for him as he doesn't have all of his regular computer equipment with him."

"How can he have forgotten any of it? He packed so much!"

"He'll be working on it tonight, and said not to bother coming over, but that if he found something he'd come and tell us in the middle of the night. He also added that he won't be able to speak with us tomorrow as his camp is doing something where they won't have individual free time."

"That just leaves the last day to talk to him, and that's the supposed big obstacle day!"

"I'm sure we can work out something," he said optimistically.

"Yeah, maybe."

Zee stopped the car at the end of the road. They'd wait for the pizza delivery guy here. He turned off the engine and pulled up the brake. Rather than waiting inside of the car, Zee reached behind the seat and retrieved their sticks and two knives. Apparently when he'd grabbed the car key's he'd also picked up their knives. He extended the sword towards Ro, holding the handle end towards her, so that she wouldn't cut herself by grabbing the blade.

"It's amazing how you can multitask and remember things like this," she smiled, taking the knife from him.

Zee hopped up onto the hood of his car and began to whittle away at the branch. Ro sat on the front end of the hood, so that they wouldn't be in danger of accidentally cutting each other. The hood was fairly warm as it'd been sitting in the sun all day long and they'd just ran the car, but it wasn't unbearably hot.

Zee's sword was quickly taking shape with each precise carving of his knife. For Ro, it was rather difficult. The sword was fairly long and she couldn't easily cut down the length of the blade in one smooth swipe. Zee's arms weren't that much longer than her arms, but he definitely seemed to have more skill than her in this regard.

A few minutes later he put his knife down, and shoved his stick back into the backseat of the car. "What is it?" Ro asked, lowering her knife as well.

"He's coming," Zee announced.

She put her knife and branch in the back of the car as well and jumped down from the hood of the car. In a few seconds, she saw a pizza delivery truck slowly make the turn onto the road they were on. Zee waived his arm high in the air so that the driver could be sure that they were the people he was supposed to meet up with. The driver stopped his truck and rolled down the window, "I've got a pizza delivery for Jennifer," he announced.

"That's us," Ro piped up.

The pizza delivery guy pulled out the bill slip and handed it to Zee. Zee pulled out his cred card and presented it to the man to pay for the bill, as well as give the guy a healthy tip for finding the place within a reasonable time.

"Do you want me to drive these in, or do you have things covered?" he asked, Zee, smiling rather widely. There was an extra hint of politeness in his voice. Was he flirting with Zee?

"That's kind of you to offer, but we can take it in," Ro declined, quickly stepping in between them. Flirting with a girl was one thing. Flirting with a male robot pretending to be a girl was a completely different story. She had to end it before it began. Luckily, Zee seemed rather indifferent to the whole situation—probably because he didn't even know what was going on.

"Are you sure? It's covered in the cost…" He was trying to buy more time with them.

"No, we're fine," Ro insisted.

"Are you sure?" he asked again. How many times did she have to refuse him?

"We're fine," Zee said. He finally stopped asking once Zee told him no. He then began to stack the pizza boxes on the hood of his truck and placed the heavy flats of sodas on the ground. Zee bent over and picked up the two flats of sodas with one arm, then he piled the stack of pizza boxes on top. He then carried the load to the car. It was a ridiculous amount of weight for a normal person to carry as easily as he appeared to be.

Ro covered her face in embarrassment.

"Does your friend work out?" the delivery guy asked Ro.

"Yeah, she's always at the gym…" Ro said quickly.

She then quickly grabbed the bags of crazy bread and followed him out to their car.

Zee was sure going to get an earful when they got back in the car. Having delivered the pizzas and collected payment, the pizza delivery guy climbed back into his truck and took off back towards the highway.

With the bags of crazy bread in her hand, Ro headed back towards their car. Zee smiled, holding the passenger door open for her. His sweet gentleman-like manner made her extra angry. How could she scold him if he was being so considerate? Then again, he didn't look like himself. He was a girl, not a young gentleman. She had no problem scolding another female. It wouldn't be the same as having to face his innocent sheepish expression that she was familiar with. This feminine one she could resist.

He shut the door then walked around to the driver's side and carefully climbed in, shutting the door. Before he could start the car Ro asked, "What was that about? You just want to tell him that you can bench press a pick up truck?"

"You said that you didn't need his help. I assumed it meant that you were expecting me to carry in the pizzas instead."

"But not in one trip! I know you're trying to help out, but no young girl would carry that much weight… " He was trying to do more than help out. He wanted to fit in, and he'd failed. "Next time, just make a few trips, okay?"

They drove up to their campsite rather than trying to find some people to help them carry all of the food back from their parking space behind the mess hall. Ro had her window down so everyone in the campsites that they passed could smell the pizzas, if not see the boxes stacked in the backseat of their car. Ro could hear distant cries of , "Why do they get pizza?" She smiled to herself. Jennifer was the best.

At their campsite, everything was quickly unloaded. "How much was it? Jennifer asked once Zee got out of the car.

He quoted her a price several creds less than what Ro had thought that the pizza guy had originally asked.

"They told me it would be more on the phone…" Jennifer commented.

"Well, because we had such a large order, and it took him so long to get here he gave us a discount," Zee lied. Ro knew better. He was footing the difference so that it would be cheaper for everyone else. But, hey, it wasn't really their money to begin with, so who cared?

"That was awfully generous of them." She then paid Zee the remaining sum.

The pizza and soda was absolutely delicious. It wasn't an "all you can eat", but there was enough for everyone to have a few slices, or to eat enough so that they could last until dinner, or so that they weren't hungry anymore. While some girls had thought that they were starving they found that after their second slice, they weren't as hungry as they'd thought they'd been. Jennifer had miraculously managed to know the exact amount of pizza that they'd need so that they didn't have to store leftovers. As Ro and Zee had gone to get the pizza's they were offered the remaining few slices that had been leftover. Ro helped herself to an extra slice, and the others were finished off by other girls in the group. They'd finished eating lunch even before the usually hour allotment for their educational hour was over. They still had their complete lunch hour to do whatever they wanted with. As none of the regular free time activities would be set up, this meant that it was an ideal time to continue working on their swords.

Zee took their swords and knives out of the back of their car, and went to re-park it by himself. Ro set herself up on a tree stump and continued her whittling. Mandy was a safe distance away on another stump. When Zee returned he placed himself within a close, but safe vicinity of them and continued to work on his sword as well. He finished within a half hour.

Zee's blade looked absolutely perfect. There was hardly any other way to describe it. He'd even found a rough, yet smoothly polished stone that he'd used to slightly sand the rest of his blade smooth. The stone hardly did anything as he'd done a near perfect whittling job. He even had a small groove going down both sides of the blade to make it look more realistic. The blade was exquisite, but the hilt of the sword remained untouched. What was he supposed to do for a handle? He'd left a large block of the branch at the end un-chiseled, not knowing what to do for a handle. He sought out Jennifer to ask her how they should finish the end.

She was amazed with his work on the blade. "Most of the girls have left their ends as you have yours now, but I think it might be nice if you did some scroll work. Maybe you could carve out a simple rattan pattern on it?" she suggested.

It hadn't exactly answered his concern with the different styles of hilts for swords, so he figured he'd adopt a style that didn't require a cross guard, which would include adding an extra piece onto the sword. Jennifer had had a good idea about carving a design on the bottom though.

By the time that Ro's blade was beginning to take shape, Zee had finished his sword. At the bottom he had a dragon, its mouth at the very end of the sword, and its tail snaking it's way around the sword until it blended into the blade. Its scaly skin gave it a texture that made it easy to grip and hold onto.

"Oh no," Ro sighed when she saw the finished product. It wouldn't have been so bad if Zee's sword wasn't perfectly formed with an intricate carving on it that looked like it was machine made.

"What are you saying?" Mandy scolded Ro. "It's gorgeous! I wish I'd thought of something like that. Then again, mine wouldn't nearly look so well… Yours looks so professional—like it was made by a machine!"

"Yeah," Ro laughed nervously. "Zee's really mechanically inclined," she tried to turn the matter into a joke.

"Do you need help with yours?" Zee asked Ro.

She hadn't gotten very far and her hand was feeling rather warm and rough from having held her knife for so long, and his craftsmanship was superb, but, their hour for lunch was over and it was free time. "Can't. We have to go and clean up the toilet paper, remember?"

"I think we should just leave them to clean it up themselves," Mandy remarked, "but we did say we'd help out, didn't we?"

Jennifer announced that they'd be heading over in a few minutes to help clean up the toilet paper as a group, but as soon as that was over they'd be coming right back here to start working on their skit, regardless of whether or not they'd finished their swords. She declared that they'd have to finish their swords on their own time, as the rest of their extra free group time would be devoted to practicing. Their individual free time could still be used at their own discretion.

There weren't that many people gathered at the Redwood site in the afternoon as there had been in the morning. Some people must have decided that they didn't care to help out after all, or they were running late with the lunch clean up so they weren't here yet. Clean up for the Laurel site had been easy. They'd just taken the empty boxes and had thrown them in the dumpsters while putting the empty cans in the recycling.

The other campsites were taking the easy task of cleaning up the toilet paper on the ground and tents, leaving the harder task of getting it out of the trees to someone else. The toilet paper had indeed dried in the day time so clean up was going rather quickly. Some people were beating the tents to get the toilet lint paper off of the cleaned tents. Ro couldn't help but bitterly notice that the Redwood girls weren't actually helping out with the clean up, but were ordering the other girls around, and criticizing the clean up that the girls did do. "How dare they…" she muttered.

"Ignore them. We'll get them back later, again."

"What else are we going to do to these unfortunate girls?" Ro wondered evilly.

"So, how are we going to get the toilet paper out of the trees?" Ro asked, looking up into the branches.

Mandy looked up into the trees, analyzing the situation. While they'd originally thought that throwing rocks at it would work, she was having second guesses. It looked really high up and she doubted that she could hit the this streamer of tissue paper.

Zee looked up at the trees, then down at the ground. His eyes fixed on a small dirt clod at his feet. He picked it up, and tossed it lightly in the air, weighing it in his hands. The clod would hold its shape fairly well and wasn't going to break apart the instant that he threw it. He clutched it in his fist, then took aim and threw it high into the air. The swift movement of his arm startled Ro at first, and she ducked, covering her head, as it'd almost seemed as if he was going to strike her.

As she held her arms over her head, a thin streamer of toilet paper lightly floated in front of her face, then down to her feet, along with a single leaf from the tree above her. She looked up at the tree, and saw that there was one less streamer dangling above her. He'd thrown the dirt clod so fast that it'd sliced through the toilet paper, causing it to separate into two pieces and slip off the branch.

Zee bent down and picked up a handful of dirt clods and began to throw them in quick secession into the tree. Several of the girls nearby seemed frightened when Zee started throwing the dirt clods, afraid that they might land on them when they came back down, but soon realized that they were who were no where near where the clods were landing. It was the Redwood girls, who were even further away from the landing point of the dirt clods that were making the biggest fuss of the matter. Zee ignored them but kept up with his work. Redwood could take care of the droppings that he was leaving for them.

Mandy and Ro quickly set out to find more dirt clods for Zee to throw. When it seemed like it was a little too obvious that he had exceptional aim, he began to let some of his shots purposely miss.

In the inhumanely short time of fifteen minutes, Zee had all of the toilet paper out of the tree. "We're done here," he announced.

They returned to their campsite to surprisingly find that so had all of the rest of their campsite. They'd abandoned Redwood only a few minutes after showing up. "Oh, you're here, Zee!" Jennifer exclaimed. "You still think you could help us with the sword choreography?"

"Of course!" Zee said brightly.

Jennifer explained more to him about what her idea of the skit was, and he worked the movie scenes and lessons that he'd downloaded around her plan. Needless to say, everyone was impressed with his skills and his teaching technique. While having an endless library of knowledge was handy, it wasn't helpful if he couldn't effectively pass it on to anyone else. Fortunately he'd thought of this last night, and had looked at some techniques for teaching and instruction of fencing and sparring.

The time they spent practicing went by very quickly, and suddenly, Jennifer was announcing that it was time to start packing up to go to the mess hall for dinner. Luckily, their efficiency and eagerness to learn had helped them to make good use of the time that they'd had. Rather than putting their swords in their tents, several girls insisted that they wanted to carry their swords around with them. While Jennifer didn't think this was a good idea as it might ruin their skit idea, their young, pleading eyes softened her heart. "Alright--as long as you don't stab anyone with it or start practicing the skit in front of everyone!"

Hearing that they could carry their swords around with them caused several other girls to head back to their tents to retrieve their swords. They created belts to carry their swords in by tying handkerchiefs around their waists, or by tying a small loop onto their belt loops. Jennifer took out her own sword and led the cavalry up to the mess hall. Everyone had smug faces on. It felt good to be a part of a group, especially one that was allowed to carry around cool-looking swords. Everyone had arrived a little early in order to hear who had won the cleanest campsite award, and who was first in line for dinner.

Their campsite was the cleanest today, but it was an empty victory. They would only be first in line for one out of the two meals of the day, and in Ro's opinion who wanted to be first in line for meatloaf anyway?

She didn't speak out too loudly about the meal as it seemed that several other people actually enjoyed eating meatloaf. She didn't think less of them for liking such a disgusting food, but wouldn't be wanting any for herself. "I think I'll try one of those religious fasts tonight," she commented quietly. Come to think of it, she was still pretty full from the extra slice she'd had this afternoon. Fasting wouldn't be that bad.

"The menu displeases you?" Zee asked.

"Not really, but I'll manage. I can always ask Mandy if she has anything edible in her tent after dinner, before campfire."

"You don't want me to call out for pizza again?" he asked. She replied with a firm, "No."

Zee followed her through the line, but there really wasn't much that Ro felt like eating tonight. Zee didn't take a plate for himself this time. He wasn't even going to bother with a holographic one. He was just going to insist that he was still full from the pizza they'd had at lunch. Hopefully no one would have noticed that he really hadn't had any at lunch. Maybe that was why they'd even had those few extra slices?

"Not hungry?" Mandy asked Zee as they sat down.

"No, I'm still full from lunch." He replied.

"You?" she asked, turning to Ro. "Your plate looks rather empty."

"Hamburger cooked in raw egg doesn't really agree with me."

"You know what I've got in my tent, so don't feel afraid to help yourself if I'm not around, if you get hungry later."

"Thanks."

Ro turned from the table and looked around at the other campers. There was some background noise of other tables trying to play the cup passing game while they waited to be served. Ro could tell they were adding an extra clap somewhere by the obscured rhythm. It wasn't her place to tell them that they were doing it wrong, or in her nature to care. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, so why bother their bliss? Redwood, however, noticed and snidely commented that the girls were doing it wrong, but didn't feel inclined to tell them what it was, or to show them by exampled. Ro suspected that they weren't even sure themselves what was wrong with the melody. She was irritated with their rude behavior, but it wasn't her place to try and be the peacemaker easier. It had to be the fact that she wasn't preoccupied with eating that made her feel extra irritated with them.

Dinner seemed to go by rather slowly. It seemed longer than usual, but maybe it was just because she wasn't eating this time? Halfway through dinner, the director announced that she would me making another announcement at the end of the dinner, so no one was to take off early. "Why not just tell us what it is now?" Ro wondered out loud.

"It's about the competition on the last day," Mandy informed her.

"How do you know?" Zee asked.

"They always announce it on the fourth day. It allows you to think about what you want to do tomorrow for free time, you know, in case you want to start practicing in the canoes or archery range or something."

"Why not just tell us at the group campfire?"

"People sometimes ditch campfire, or manage to slip off to avoid it. However, usually no one misses dinner. There's a better chance of reaching everyone if an announcement is made at one of the meals rather than at campfire."

Satisfied with her explanation, Ro turned to her plate. She didn't really feel like eating much at all, and pushed it away. The girls around her must have known what the announcement was about because the tables began to buzz with conversation about the competition against the boy's camp. They seemed to be more interested in talking than in eating as well. Most had finished eating anyway. Ro was sure of it now—the dinner was longer than usual. Everyone around her had finished eating, or was close to being finished. Couldn't the director make the announcement now, or was she going to wait for everyone to finish eating first?

She folded her arms, placing them on the table and rest her head on them, feeling rather impatient and bored, and maybe a little tired; she had been up late last night TPing.

_Get your elbows of the table Rosalie!_

_Get your elbows of the table Rosalie!_

_This is not a horse's stable, but a decent dining table_

_Get your elbows of the table Rosalie!"_

The familiar chanting had started. It actually had been going on all week, at least twice during each meal, but Ro had ignored it as she knew that she didn't eat with her elbows on the table and no one ever called her name out. It surprised her at first as no one called her Rosalie, but it was unmistakably her that girls at the Redwood table were singing to. They were using her formal name, Rosalie, as it had three syllables which fit in better with the song rather than just "Ro".

There used to be only two punishments for this crime, which were either to:

_"Sing a song that we all know" _or _"Round the table you must go". _

Going around the table wasn't a simple walk but had to include some ridiculous action along with making an animal sound. These two didn't seem that bad, but the most recent punishment that had only been added yesterday was to:

_"Eat a food that's really gross."_

She hoped that it wouldn't be this one. If she'd wanted to eat meatloaf she would have helped herself to it at dinner. This wouldn't be the worst thing that she might be asked to eat. They might have saved the scraped off table scraps from yesterday, and might ask her take a bite from it. What if they wanted her to lick a spoonful of lard clean? They couldn't punish her for not participating in this childish game, could they? What if she refused?

The song was coming to the part where they'd have to name her punishment. She could see their glowering, evil smiles, as they were ready to loudly sing her punishment. She wasn't sure how they decided which of the three she would have to do as she'd never felt like pointing out someone who was eating with their elbows on the table.

Mandy came to her rescue, though. Before they could decide which of the three tasks she would do (or what if they'd invented another one that was even worse?) Mandy stood up from the table and finished the song, singing louder than the Redwood girls combined,

_"Sing a song that we all know, we all know, we all know. Sing a song that we all know, you were naughty!"_

She was saved from having to do anything horrible. Her punishment had been announced. She smiled at her friend, sending her a mental note of thanks. But was this justice? "Wait a minute!" Ro shouted, standing up. "Why do I have to do this? I wasn't even eating! What if I was just resting here?"

This caused the mess hall to grow silent in contemplation, then discussion burst out. The rules didn't say anything about having your elbows on the table if you weren't eating… The counselors stood up and announced that as it was a part of the rule book they would be deciding if Ro had to sing a song, or if she was free from punishment.

The voices continued to discuss the issue among themselves at the individual tables, though their opinions would not count towards the final decision. When a verdict was decided, one of the counselors stood up to announce their judgment. "The counselors have decided, that although Ro was not eating, she will still have to complete the ritual as she had her plate in front of her. Should she have cleared her plate first, then she would be free of the charge. Anyone resting their elbows on the table, while no food is present, are also free from being charged."

"I was getting around to it," Ro mumbled, stepping out from the bench. What was she going to sing? Then, she got an idea, and a smile crept over her face. She bent over to Mandy and asked "Do you know…." She whispered the name of the song to her.

Mandy smiled as well. She whispered the name of the song down the row of girls at their table. They all got the same mischievous smile on their faces. Zee looked a little clueless. What was going on? No one was whispering anything to him.

"Give me a beat," Ro spoke to the girls at the table.

"Dum-dum da-dum, da-dum-dum, da-dum-da-dum, dum-dum da-dum…" the base line echoed in the throats of the girls as they began to hum the intro tune to Ro's song. As the girls began to feel the beat to the song, cups began to pound the table in place of drums, as well as feet on the ground. Two of the girls, and Mandy leaned their heads together as the main background singers, "Oooooo. Oooh. Ooooh. Oooh." For the guitar intro, one girl held her nose to make a low buzzing sound. Another girl picked up her forks and clinked it against her glass to imitate the chime sound from the original song.

Ro felt a hairbrush being pushed into her hands. The brush had been passed down the table from one of the girls who'd been carrying it around in her purse. A microphone, how quaint! Ro grinned, and cleared her throat. It was time for her to come in.

_Please imagine Madonna's "Material Girl" song lyrics here as has banned _

While Ro had filled her obligation by singing just a little bit, everyone was caught up in their music, and didn't end, but continued on, calling for another verse. But this wasn't just singing anymore. This was a drama production! As she started the second verse, she found herself climbing up onto the bench that she'd been sitting on, to stand over the crowd.

_More of the chorus here…_

. Some of the girls tried to imitate the men's part by overly exaggerating the lower vocal range:

_And here…._

While the girls at her table began singing the back up melody Ro found that several girls had begun to crowd around her feet. It became necessary to take one more step up. She was dancing on the top of the table! The girls who still had plates on the table quickly pulled them off, giving Ro room to perform. The stage was hers! She began to walk down the runway as she sang the next verse of the song.

_And lastly, here again…_

Everyone was enjoying her performance, except Redwood. They glowered menacingly at her. So much for trying to embarrass Ro. Rather than humiliating her they'd helped lift her up to the position of a diva! At the end of her performance Ro received a standing ovation. Several of the girls in her campsite had raised their swords in the air in her honor. She modestly curtsied, then took her place back at the table, beaming brightly. She had done well, and she knew it. Since everyone had quieted down, the director took the time to give everyone the announcement.

"Thank you, Rosalie. Wonderful performance!" (No one ever called her Rosalie. Anyone who didn't know that she liked to be called Ro would surely call her "Rosalie" now. Just great…"

"I'd like to take this time to remind you that the day after tomorrow there will have a revised schedule as we will be having our outdoor competition with the boy's camp across the way. I know that I've seen several of you down at the lake, but for those of you who haven't had a chance to see how cold the water is, tomorrow is your only chance to practice your swimming and canoeing skills. After tomorrow, it's pure competition. You may want to start thinking of who you'd like to form a team with as this is not just a competition between the other camp, but between campsites…." She went on to drone about how the number of canoes was limited so that if someone wanted to make sure they had one for tomorrow they should go early to sign up and reserve one. She also expressed her confidence in their abilities and how she hoped they would do well and beat the boy's camp. The announcement didn't really seem that important to Ro. She was sure that it could just as easily have been spread by word of mouth and that they didn't need to waste their time as they were now.

"I've got a team already, but we're short two people. I thought I'd extend the invitation to you two before I ask anyone else," Mandy said once they were excused.

"I thought that there were only teams of three," Ro commented.

"Most of the events usually involve three people, but there are six people to a group. You just rotate the people who participate in each event."

"Sounds fine."

"There's one problem," Zee spoke up quickly.

"What's that?" Ro asked.

"I can't swim," he lied. Ro slapped her forehead. Of course… His hologram didn't work in the water. What a perfect excuse, though. No one would make him participate in a water event if he couldn't swim.

"That's alright, there's archery, and target shooting. I'm sure you'll be really good at it. You seem to have a knack for accuracy."

Zee brought sword with him to the group campfire. She figured that she'd never get it done unless she allowed him to help out. Secretly she also wished to have a beautifully carved handle, which she knew he'd do for her if she left the job in his hands. They sat in the front of the group so that they could see what they were doing in the firelight, but off to the side so that the wood chips wouldn't fly at people. The first skit for campfire was actually really good. It made Ro feel insecure of their own skit, but Mandy was insistent that their sword fighting skit was going to best. If not, she knew that they would certainly have the most fun participating in it, and that's what counted most, right? Ro couldn't believe that she heard Mandy say that it was okay if they didn't get first place, and that the competition didn't really matter after all. Still, as Ro thought of the punch line for the skit again and again in her mind, she couldn't help but giggle to herself. It had been a really funny skit.

The second skit was on the same level as the first two skits. They hadn't made much out of the extra day that they had. Or maybe they didn't care to win? The only reason that their skit would be good was because they spent so much time practicing on it. A lot of that time was their free time…

Zee carved the handle of Ro's sword to look like bamboo shoots with small flowers and birds poking out from inside of the leaves and stalks. "Where did you learn to do this?" Mandy asked, amazed.

"Wood shop?" Zee suggested meekly.

"I wish I'd gone to your high school," Mandy sighed.

High school. Ro hadn't been in school since she'd ran away from the girl's home. While she was missing out on a formal education, she certainly didn't feel like she was lacking in her educational resources. Zee was always more than willing to share his abundance of knowledge. She had a walking dictionary and encyclopedia for a teacher. She didn't need school. But (maybe someday) when they cleared his name, she might enroll in a junior college and catch up on what she missed.

Even Mandy had forgotten what they were regularly supposed to do at the individual campsite campfires as all that Mandy ever had them do when they were together was practice their skit. As Mandy elaborated on their plans, Ro began to share Mandy's vision; their skit was going to be the best. The fact that her sword was extra beautiful only made the experience more enjoyable. She almost hated to practice with it and put small dents in the blade.

"We have lunch kapers tomorrow, don't we…" Ro commented on their way back from the showers.

"Yeah. If we bring our swimming stuff with us, we could easily be first to reserve a canoe as the kitchen is really close to the docks. You up for it, Ro?"

"I might spend some time canoeing, but I was really hoping to go to the Hidden Falls with Zee later."

"That's fine. The canoe is my best event so I was thinking I'd just stay around the lake and coach girls from our campsite who asked me for some help."  
"What about the skit?" Zee asked.

"It should be fine. Jennifer seems to give us plenty of time to practice outside of free time. We can take a day off," Ro assured him.

Zee pulled down the rope ladder for Ro. "You want me to help you wake up in the morning?" Mandy asked Ro, winking. Zee caught her wink. He knew from experience that it automatically meant that something was being said "between the lines."

"What'd you have in mind?" Ro asked.

"If you want to know, you'll have to come with. But it's a smaller group. No boys."

Ro debated how tired she was right now, and how tired she'd been this morning when she'd gotten up after having stayed out at night. But, she was curious to see what this prank was that Mandy was hinting at. "Sure, why not."

Mandy didn't mention whether tonight was going to be just as cold or warmer than last night, and Ro didn't mention anything about unzipping the two sleeping bags so Zee again rejoiced in the special moment of sharing one with Ro. It was the simple things in life that mattered.

"You doing okay?" Ro asked sleepily.

"Excuse me?" he asked. Did she detect a malfunction? No! Did she sense a malfunction. Grrrr… he was really becoming upset with himself. The correct thought analysis to match Ro's speech pattern would imply that she was merely asking, but not noticing anything. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?" he asked.

"No reason. Just checking," Ro said sweetly. Zee never talked about himself. Sometimes it seemed like he was purposely hiding troubling thoughts from her because he didn't want to burden her with them. But, she wanted to share his burden. Left alone, he'd carry them all inside by himself, like a big metal storage safe. She had to occasionally ask him to open it to make sure that the valuables inside were still there. "Are you having a good time?"

"How would you define good?" he asked her. "Everything is within tolerances"

He really was beginning to sound a computer again. "Yeah, but are you having fun?"

Not that word again. Zee decided it would be easier to define "good" than it would be to define "fun." He answered, "Yes, I'm having a good time."

"What do you like most about this vacation so far?" she asked.

Why was she doing this to him? She knew that he wasn't capable of processing such information. He didn't have many preferences like she had, as to what he would prefer to spend his time or what he wouldn't. Would "right here, right now?" be a good answer? "I like seeing you have a good time," he safely answered.

He was playing difficult. She'd have to work her way around his invisible barrier. "Then tell me. What was one thing that I did that you thought that I really enjoyed doing?" she asked. She'd corner him into analyzing what kinds of things were "fun" and what was not.

He wished she hadn't asked that because now he'd have to lie, or fee bad about telling his perception of the truth. "I thought that you really liked singing after dinner… You were really caught up with that song." He knew she wasn't with him for his cred card, but why when she was singing could he not bring himself to look at her while she was performing?

What a horrible thing for him to say. Sure the song had been in good fun. But why that over anything else that they'd done so far? "It was nice to have all of that attention, but that wasn't what I liked most." She eyed him suspiciously and added, "I hope you didn't take the lyrics seriously…"

"Of course not!" he said defensively.

"Good, because I'd hate to have to dent your head, pounding it in… It was just for fun. Nothing important. One more guess." She'd be nice to him and end this inquiry. Maybe some day in the future she'd pry deeper into his thoughts, but for now she would just try and scratch the surface of the way his robotic mind worked.

Zee thought for a moment. "When you TP'd Redwood?" he asked.

"You weren't even there to see me, how would you know?"

"You seemed very pleased when we cleaned it up."

She might just have to give him that one. "That was a lot of fun--as well as the time when you dumped your plate all over Cynthia. That was glorious!"

Zee smiled, as Ro began to doze off next to him. Reflecting back on their short conversation, he really wished that he had said, "Right here, right now."

Mandy didn't wait until early in the morning, but came to get Ro up around 2:30 in the night. "They won't even be asleep!" Ro protested.

"They may be. They might not be. It doesn't matter this time. If they were smart, they'll still be awake, which will make this even better."

How could them being awake make things better? Wouldn't it make things much harder? They climbed down from the net and hurried behind Mandy to get some other girls up. There were six of them in total. Ro suspected that the three other girls were Mandy's other friends, and were the ones that they'd be grouped with for the competitions. They began walking down the road towards Redwood. They weren't quietly sneaking, but walking in their shoes. Mandy had her flashlight on, but had her shirt wrapped over the end so that it was only giving off a dim light.

She whispered to Ro and Zee, "We actually set this one up while we were cleaning up the toilet paper. We couldn't have planned it better ourselves. It was the perfect excuse we needed to get close to their tents without seeming suspicious."

The other three girls with them separated and headed off towards the far end of the Redwood campsite. To do so they had to creep through the Buckeye campsite. The preplanning that Mandy did for these pranks was amazing. The girls stopped at the two of the tents in the Buckeye site and awoke the girls inside. They were invited inside. "Okay, now it's our turn."

"Our turn for a slumber party?" Zee asked quietly.

Mandy suppressed a laugh. She began searching the ground with the dim light from her flashlight. "Here!" she exclaimed, picking up a thin fishing line.

"What's it for?" Ro asked. They'd already established that this wasn't a completely silent mission.

Mandy followed the fishing line until she found a short, think branch that it was wrapped around. She turned off her light, leaving it in the front pocket of her sweatshirt. She began to carry the fishing line to a position directly across from the Buckeye tents her friends were in. She crouched down behind a tree, motioning for Ro and Zee to follow her. Zee noticed behind them a couple feet away was the Sycamore campsite. He could see that a screen for one of the tents had been unzipped, and was left wide open. There were two young girl's faces peering out of the window in the tent eagerly. Were they in on this too?

They couldn't directly see the girls in the tents across from them because one of the Redwood tents was between them. "Here we go," Mandy smirked.

She began to lightly unroll the fishing line. Ro had a hard time seeing what was going on as it was dark, but soon enough figured out the prank for herself. Zee's revelation came when he noticed that the fishing line was tied to a thick piece of rope than ran under the Redwood tent. It wouldn't have been visible if someone wasn't directly looking for it. When Mandy had unrolled a fair amount of line, she began to roll it back up again. This time she did it quicker and more deliberately. She wrapped the twin around her arm to take up greater lengths of it at a time. Then she'd quickly would pull of the extra line. Apparently the girls in the other tent were doing the same thing. They were dragging the short length of rope back and forth between them under the girl's tent. After a moment, it seemed like nothing was happening, then some stirrings were heard in the Redwood tent. Wasn't this the time for them to play dead and be really quiet? But Mandy still continued to eagerly pull the rope under the tent. Silenced voices were heard in the Redwood tent. They were querying each other as to why they were waking up in the middle of the night, or what the disturbance was. A flashlight was turned on, then screams rang through the campsite. "SNAKE! SNAKE!"

Mandy made one more hard tug on the line before pulling out her pocket knife and quickly cutting the fishing line. She threw the loose end away from where they were hiding, taking the larger part of the cut off coil of line with her. She shoed Ro and Zee towards the open tent window. "GO! GO!" she hissed.

"Sorry to intrude," Zee said as he climbed through the open window of the two girl's tents. They'd moved aside from the window to allow them entrance. They had buried their faces into their pillows and were trying not to die of hysterical laughter. Once Mandy made it inside of the tent, she resealed the Velcro window. Fortunately the girls had left it down before went to bed as it would have made a lot of noise if they'd opened it in the middle of the night. They lay down, shoulder to shoulder, in the tent, listening to the noises outside. They didn't dare raise their heads above the window line to see what was going on. The screaming was still going on, and several other girls were waking up. The lights in their tents were coming on, and they zippers could be heard unzipping all around.

While they couldn't see what was happening in the other tent, Mandy knew. As soon as she'd cut her end of the rope, the other tent had quickly pulled the rest of the rope, and the length of fishing line into their tent, hiding the evidence. While the one Redwood tent continued to scream—too afraid to leave their tent and go outside where the "snake" was, several other girls began to unzip their tents to see what was going on. Under the cover of the noise from the other tents and waking campers, they'd quickly zipped up their window as their window was not conveniently shut with Velcro. They were safe. Marianne, their counselor, was one of the first to arrive at their rescue.

Her adrenaline was running, and she held a long rod in her hand. It was a simple long reach taser—given to all counselors in case they should have to ward off wild animals. She was asking, "Where's the bear?"

It was clear that it wasn't a bear, but a snake from the continued cries inside of the tent, "Snake! Snake! Snake!" She quickly unzipped the door to their tent, and stepped in. The girls screamed, "SHUT THE DOOR YOU'LL LET IT IN!"

At first, only the campsite on either side had been aroused, but by now, their screams had reached all seven campsites.

"Quiet! Where is it?" Marianne asked.

"Under the tent!" they shrieked.

No matter how hard she tried to tell them to be quiet because they were waking up everyone else, and that she would handle the snake, they wouldn't be quiet. The two girls in the tent that Ro and Zee were hiding in un-Velcroed their door and stepped out. "Do we follow them?' Ro asked

"Not yet."

Several people from nearby campsites had come to see what was going on. When it seemed like there was a fairly large group, Mandy deemed that it was safe from them to creep out and join the crowd, pretending to be a curious spectators as well. She hid the fishing line under her sweatshirt. The other tent still had the rope coiled up under one of the sleeping bags. The director eventually found her way to the site and told everyone to go to bed. Redwood's tent was un-staked so that it could be searched underneath, and everything was emptied out onto a tarp so that the inside could be searched. Then everything was replaced once it was deemed to be "snake free."

"That's why it took so long for them to notice," Mandy commented, surveying the contents of the tent on the tarp.

"Why?" Zee asked.

"They're all sleeping on air beds and cots. You can hardly feel the rope underneath an airbed or cot…"

"It still worked didn't it?" Ro asked.

"It sure did. Good work ladies. Let's go back to bed now."

"Was this fun?" Zee asked Ro.

"Oh, yeah."

Redwood spent the better half of the night putting everything back into their tent. Even then they didn't sleep well, afraid that the snake was living in a hole in the ground, and had quickly "covered up the hole" when they checked under the tent. The most hilarious part of the ordeal was that they insisted that they'd heard someone walking around at night and accused them, of slipping the snake in under their tent. The fact that there was no evidence of anyone at the crime scene when they woke up, and the difficult measures it would take to bring a snake to camp, (or the dangers of trying to catch a live one at camp) made this seem highly unlikely. The footsteps were probably someone going to the bathroom, and the snake probably crawled under their tent under its own accord.


	6. Day 5

Mandy suddenly announced that morning that this was the morning they were supposed to be participating in the flag raising ceremony.

"But we haven't practiced!" Ro insisted.

"It doesn't matter. I'll tell you what to do. We have to be there ten minutes early, so just keep that in mind," she said then headed off.

"I've got a record of the procedure loaded in my…"

"I know, Zee," Ro said before he could finish. "I'm sure it'll be fine. No one's made a big deal out of this yet."

With Mandy giving everyone instructions under her breath, they put on a very professional flag raising ceremony—complete with a formal color guard to escort the flag bearer as she was heading to the flag pole. It was Ro's job to actually pull the rope that pulled the flag to the top of the pole. Mandy whispered, "The flag should be raised briskly, or quickly with effort in the morning. At night it should be lowered slowly and more ceremoniously."

Ro hauled the flag up the pole very quickly. As she was tying off the end, under Mandy's instructions it occurred to her that she'd just raised the symbol of the United States: the symbol of their government…the same government that was supposed to secure freedom and liberty to "all", which at the moment didn't necessarily include Zee. How ironic was it that they were now showing their support for a government that didn't support them? It felt strange. After reciting the pledge of allegiance, the director made a short announcement. She didn't say anything about Redwood's snake attack, but reminded the girls not to keep food in their tents as it might attract wild animals. As if snakes liked chocolate.

Ro was handed a small bead for having participated. She had less than a half dozen beads in total. In truth, she didn't even remember where she'd put the other ones that she'd been given during certification. But, she didn't care, so what did it matter?

"How many beads do you have?" Ro asked Mandy.

"Not as many as I've had in previous years. I haven't done as many activities because we've been practicing the skit," Mandy sighed. "Oh well."

Breakfast was extra delicious which made up for the fact that Ro didn't like dinner last night. She was absolutely starving which made things harder as she hadn't asked Mandy for any food last night. They were second to last in line. They might have had a chance at placing higher by sending an alternate in Jennifer's place to do the competition. It would have worked out better if they'd asked Jennifer if she could whistle before they had her cram her mouth full of peanut butter. Rather than trying to whistle, she'd been trying to explain that she can't even whistle despite her mouth being full of peanut butter. The director thought it was worth more credit than the person who'd refused to even taste the peanut butter, which is why they weren't last. Somehow as a result of Ro's performance, there was a large increase of the number of young girls who were caught with their elbows on the table. After it became obvious that they began that they were purposely putting their elbows on the table for a chance to perform a song, they stopped asking people to sing a song as a punishment. Even when the girls still left their elbows on the table for a chance to be in the spotlight of attention, everyone just gave up on calling out the people with their elbows on the tables for the morning. Maybe by lunch the excitement would die down?

"Now, for our educational hour for today, we're going to learn first aid. First aid is the _FIRST AID_ that is given in the even of an emergency. I don't know how more simple to explain it. If you ask me they should have taught this first… What would have happened if you had broken your leg on a trail? What are you going to tell your buddy? Sorry, I'm not first aid certified. We won't cover it until the second to last day of camp. And that's when your buddy, holding in the pain and possibly bleeding all over the place will sarcastically say, 'I know.' Oh well… luckily none of you have hurt yourselves…yet…"

If Zee has been a human, his face would have gone pale. Jennifer was demonstrating the Heimlich maneuver and mouth to mouth resuscitation on a dummy she made out of stuffing a pair of jeans and a shirt. The head was a blown up balloon. He didn't have a nose for his buddy to pinch. He didn't even have a lower abdomen for them to wrap their arms around. His robotic anatomy in his abdomen area was nothing like that of a human's.

"I'll be back," he whispered to Ro then slipped off.

Mandy noticed that he was gone, but didn't ask about him until it'd been a while. "Is Zee coming back?" she asked.

"Yeah, she'll be back," Ro assured her. "Just went off for a little while."

What Ro thought that she liked most about Mandy was that she didn't ask them personal questions, and she never asked them to explain their odd ways. Zee's absence remained unnoticed by the rest of the hour until near the end Jennifer noticed he was missing when asking everyone to demonstrate that they knew first aid on each other. "Where's Zee?" she asked when she was going to check him off as being certified. First aid was actually one thing she thought was important, and not worth doing a slop job on.

"She had to go do something for a while. She said she'd be back shortly."

"Who's her buddy?"

Ooops…Zee had just gone off by himself. Should Ro tell Jennifer he didn't have one? "No need to worry, I'm here! Zee piped up. Ro could see him climbing out of their tent. He was now wearing one of the outfits that she'd bought in the store. She wouldn't tell him that most people couldn't hear a simple conversation from that far away.

"You going to show me you know first aid now?" she asked.

Zee pulled out a cell phone, and pointed to it. "9-1-1, first number on the speed dial," he said, smiling innocently.

Jennifer laughed. "Nice try, let's see you show me where to put your hands for the Heimlich maneuver on Ro."

Zee went to wrap his arms around Ro, while Ro embarrassedly mimicked a scene where she was choking. It felt a little silly to be wrapping his arms around her (an intimate gesture) for only a simple demonstration. She could feel that there was something different about him as he stood behind her. First of all he was actually wearing her clothes, but what else was it? "Good," Jennifer said. "Now, I won't ask you to perform mouth to mouth, so just tell me what the steps are."

Zee almost began reciting the medical procedure as it was recorded from his data banks, but remembered to paraphrase, and make it sound more like what Jennifer had been teaching. She asked him several other questions about treating broken bones, hypothermia, cuts, and snake bites." He answered all of her questions correctly.

It was Ro's turn next. While Jennifer suggested she practice on Zee, Ro asked if it was okay to demonstrate on Mandy, as she'd practiced with Mandy. It was hard enough to find where to put her hands on a real person, much less on someone who didn't really have a stomach. Ro passed the certification as well.

They were dismissed to their tents to get ready for lunch. Ro followed Zee into their tent. "So what's up?" she asked Zee. "Something's different."

He lifted up his shirt. He'd wrapped a towel around his middle to give it some bulk. "Just in case, you'd actually had to demonstrate on me… I didn't want your hands to go through my hologram… But you cleverly managed to avoid the situation." He was grateful not to have been put in such a position, but sad that he had this problem in the first place.

"Don't worry about it. Just don't get anything on my shirt. I like that shirt a lot," she teased him.

"We have clean up for lunch, so I think that I'll just change out of it, as there's a greater chance it'll get dirty during clean up." It was a simpler explanation that trying to explain that he really didn't care to be dressed up in girl's clothes. Ro wasn't about to protest either, and tell him not to go to the trouble. She didn't want him to remotely become comfortable in them or with the feminine appearance.

"Hey, Ro, Zee?" Mandy called inside their tent. Ro could see her shadow on the wall of the tent. She was standing right outside of their tent! Ro's heart nearly stopped. If she could see her shadow, then could anyone else see their silhouettes from the outside of the tent? Could they see Zee's outline, with his pencil thin waist? He was wearing his hologram right now, but Ro didn't think that his hologram had enough substance to it to make a shadow on the tent wall! Had they gone through this entire week so far without realizing this? What if Mandy was close enough to their tent to possibly see through it?

Ro quickly dashed in front of Zee, so that if he did have a shadow, hers would be blocking it. But, then she realized, Zee was still wearing her T-shirt. The T-shirt would cover up his thin waist. She relaxed a little, "Yeah?."

"Didn't mean to bother you, but I just thought I'd remind you that if you want to get a canoe, you might bring your swimsuit with you to change into, or you might change into it now and wear it under your clothes to lunch," Mandy spoke politely.

"Oh, right," Ro sighed. Her heart was still pounding from the scare that Mandy had given her. "Do you want to just sit on the dock and watch?" Ro asked Zee.

"I'm fine doing anything you want," he replied, considerately.

"Maybe for a while, I really do want to go hiking to the falls later."

"You know that free time is extended by a half hour today," Mandy reminded her.

"Since when?" Ro asked.

"The director announced it last night after dinner, Ro," Zee commented.

"I guess I wasn't really listening then."

"So you up for it?" Mandy asked.

"Sure."

"Don't forget your towels!" Mandy said, then her shadow left the tent.

"That was scary," Ro commented to Zee.

"What was?"

"I thought she would be able to see our shadows…"

"And why would that be bad?" Zee asked innocently.

How could she tell him without making him feel too conspicuous about his body. "Well… you kind of have this unique profile, or silhouette… It's not bad or anything, but it doesn't look…"

While she searched for the right word, Zee provided one for her. He didn't allow his voice to sound sad though, "Human?" he asked.

Ro was thinking of saying "normal" rather than "human" but even that would have been an insult to his character. "You just have a really thin waist…" she said quietly.

"I thought being skinny was deemed as a trait of beauty?"

"Only to a certain extent, then it becomes sickly."  
"Right. Well, I assume you'll want the privacy of the tent to yourself, so I'll be waiting for you outside when you're done changing." He left Ro in the tent.

Ro felt a pang of guilt for not being able to think of something else to make him feel good about himself, but even after he was gone nothing was coming to her mind. She held her swim suit in her hand, but really didn't feel like changing into it, especially now that she was aware that it cast a shadow on the tent wall. Instead, she'd ask Zee to come with her to the bathroom so she could change without having to worry about semi transparent walls.

They managed to be first in line for lunch, as their campsite was the cleanest. This would make it the cleanest for two days in a row. They would also be having pizza for lunch, two days in a row. The best part about the whole ordeal was that clean up was going to be really easy. "We'll definitely be first in line to have a canoe now!" Mandy smiled.

Ro draped her towel around her shoulders, and walked behind Mandy to the dock, with Zee at her side. Mandy went up to the counselor stationed by the canoes to ask for permission to use one, and to help dispatch it into the water, as well as find oars for it.

Zee scanned the lake. Way across on the other side he could see the dock for the boy's camp. There were a few canoes over at that end, but none of the boys were making use of them. Perhaps if Bucky got in a canoe they could meet in the middle of the lake to talk to each other?

Ro sat down on the dock and began to untie her shoes and take off her socks. She stuck her foot into the water, and quickly pulled it out again. The water felt like ice! "Is it too cold?" Zee asked.

"Too cold? You could cryogenically freeze anyone you wanted by just throwing them in the lake!"

His eyes narrowed as he looked at the shimmering surface of the water. "The water is 10 degrees Celsius."

"And in Fahrenheit?" Ro asked.

"About 50 degrees."

"This is crazy. Don't they worry that the people who go swimming here are going to get sick?"

"I'm sure they have a medical waiver form that you sign before coming to camp."

"I don't remember any form!"

"Bucky probably agreed to it when he signed us up."

Ro grumbled as she took of her pants and shirt. Maybe she'd just get a tan here on the dock instead? She wrapped her towel around her shoulders and held her knees up to her chest. "Are you cold?" Zee asked.

"I'm going to be. I'm just preparing myself for the shock."

Mandy approached them, "Ready Ro?"

"I'm having second thoughts. The water's really cold. You'll get used to it. But we won't be playing in it much today."

"Thank goodness."

"You sure you're going to be okay watching from the docks?" Mandy asked.

"I'm very sure," Zee insisted.

"Will you watch my clothes?" Ro asked.

"Of course. Would you like me to watch yours as well, Mandy?" Zee asked.

"I was just going to leave them here on the dock, but it would be very nice if you'd do that."

Zee gathered up their clothes and took them to the shore end of the dock where the water was very shallow, and sat down on the edge. That way no one would be worried about him drowning if for some reason he did fall in. In a few minutes several girls began coming and taking out the canoes. Among these girls were the three girls that they'd played the rope prank with from last night. They approached him on the dock rather than heading off to try and secure one of the last canoes.

"I know we met last night, and that I've seen you around at dinner and stuff, but I feel really bad that I don't know your name," one of them spoke to him.

"I'm Zena, or Zee," Zee introduced himself. "Ro's my friend over there," he pointed. Chances were if they didn't know him, they wouldn't know her either.

"I'm Laura, and this is Heather and this is Carrie," Laura, the shortest of the group, introduced her friends.

"Pleased to meet you."

"You going to swim or canoe?" Carrie asked him.

"I can't swim so I was just going to watch from here on the dock."

"Would you mind keeping an eye on our clothes then? I mean, just as long as you're sitting there. We don't want you to inconvenience yourself or feel obligated…"

"It's no problem at all," Zee insisted. He knew that they'd asked only

because of the pile of clothes that he already had by him.

"Thanks. Sometimes people will come and dunk your stuff in the water so that it's all wet and cold when you come back to it."

How mean. He wouldn't let that happen to Ro's stuff. "Are either of you

going swimming?" he asked.

"Carrie and I are. Laura is going canoeing with Mandy," Heather answered.

Laura would be the third person for the canoe then. "Mandy and Ro already have a canoe reserved," Zee informed her.

"That's good. I tried to get here early, but it seems like they're already taken." It was true, while they were talking the last canoes had been dispatched.

"The water's really cold," Zee commented to Heather and Carrie.

"We know, but you get used to it. We'll probably only do a practice lap or two for tomorrow. We'll be doing the distance swimming part of it."

"Isn't it usually three to an event?"

"Not for swimming, only for major group competitions. One of the canoe competitions, is actually just a two person event."

It made sense now. Twenty-one people from each side would be a lot of swimmers for a simple distance swimming race. "I wish you good luck."

"Thanks," they said, then set their clothes down near him to watch while they went to the edge of the dock to dive in. Laura headed off to where Mandy and Ro were with the canoe.

"The first thing you'll need to know is what to do in case your canoe flips over." The counselor instructed Ro and Mandy. "So what I'm going to have you do is get in, then you're going to tip you over your canoe then turn it over and climb back in."

"We'll be practicing right near the dock so you don't need to worry," Mandy assured Ro.

"That's not any more comforting."

"I was hoping not to get wet, but I guess that isn't going to happen," Ro trailed off.

She was handed an orange life-preserver to put on before she climbed into the canoe. Mandy took the front position. Ro was handed an oar, but she didn't know what to do with it. The whole situation made her feel uneasy. What the heck was she supposed to do? The counselor pushed them out a little bit and Mandy began to shift her weight back and forth, rocking the canoe. Ro remained stationary, but then realized that the canoe probably wasn't going to flip if she didn't help out. She leaned far over to the right, and that's when she felt herself being dumped into the icy cold water. Her muscles immediately cramped up, but began to work themselves out as she began to tread water. She resurfaced within a second to see their canoe, floating upside down. Her paddle wasn't very far from her. She reached for it before it got too far away. Mandy was laughing. Ro couldn't laugh as her teeth were chattering. Mandy paddled over to the side of the canoe. Ro followed her exampled. "Now, lift!" Mandy instructed Ro. She let go of her paddle for a moment to help turn over the canoe.

Ro pushed on the canoe, and it slowly began to roll back over upright again. Ro really had to push, then it finally turned upright the rest of the way. She'd been afraid that it was going to scoop up a lot of water, and sink to the bottom, but it didn't. Somehow the water washed out while they had it on its side so it didn't completely fill up. Mandy picked up her paddle and threw it into the canoe. Ro reached for hers again and threw it in over the side of the canoe. "Now to get back in," Mandy said. "Ro, you stay on that side, at the back end. I'm going to swim around to the front on the other side."

"Okay…"

She'd never tried to get into a canoe before. It was over her head's height while she was just floating by its side. How could she puller herself out of the water into it?

"Grab the side," Mandy instructed. Ro held onto it. "Now, you're going to do a pull up while swinging your right leg over the edge. We have to do it at the same time or the canoe will flip over again."

"This isn't going to work!"

"If you feel it starting to turn over, drop back into the water."

Ro grabbed the edge of the canoe and began to pull herself up into it. Swinging her right leg over the edge. She could see Mandy pantomiming her exact moves. Wait, wasn't she supposed to be following Mandy's example? No! She was actually doing it the correct way--on her own!

At the same time they both rolled into the middle of the canoe. Ro crawled to her position in the back of the canoe while Mandy resumed hers at the front.

"Good job ladies," the counselor complimented them. You pass. Now, you can switch into a canoe with less water in it while I empty out this one for the next user, and remember, only go clockwise around the lake."

"Sure," Mandy said. They quickly switched into another canoe. Mandy then began to paddle away from the dock. The canoe began to turn until Mandy instructed Ro to paddle on the opposite side of the canoe.

They began to move forward, in a straight line. Mandy then gave Ro the full crash course tutorial for directing the canoe, the best way to hold the paddle, and how to take the best strokes that would make her the least tired. "During the competition, they'll also ask us to do things like switch places or jump out of the canoe and get in again. Luckily they don't ask us to over turn the canoes in case one actually does sink into the middle of the lake. During all of this, though, we'll be trying to race to the finish line. They usually have six canoes from each camp competing at the same time."

"How will everyone have a turn then?"

"They do it in groups, and just compare the times from each group."

"One more thing. Shouldn't we be practicing with three people?"

"There's only two for this one."

"Two?" Why was she practicing then? "Wouldn't one of your other friends be more qualified?"

"Laura will be with us for the three person canoe race."

"She doesn't want to do the two person one as well?"

"Do you not want to?" Mandy asked. She almost sounded a little hurt.

"Well… I thought that you'd want to win. This is my first time in a canoe, and I know that I'm not very good at it."

"I think you're very good. You managed to climb into the canoe on the first try."

"Yeah, but, still..."

"Buts are for sitting on. You're going to do well on this one. I know it. Besides, I'll be here to tell you what to do."

"If you don't mind losing, that's up to you."

"We're not going to lose."

"'And if we do?"

"Then it was a lot of fun. Now, no more talk about your lack of qualifications. I've got to teach you how to quickly get in and out of a canoe."

It seemed like it'd taken a long time to get back into the canoe, and like a lot of things could go wrong if they weren't purposely balanced on each side. If there was a quicker way, she was anxious to hear it.

"Now, not many people make use of this technique, but it's really handy. I'll demonstrate it the slow way, then show you the quick way. You usually use this technique when helping just one person get back into a canoe."

With that, Mandy jumped into the water. It splashed Ro and she felt cold all over again. She was grateful that the weather was really warm again. Mandy swam to the edge of the canoe. "Let's say that you've fallen out. The first thing you do is swim to the side of the canoe, somewhere in the middle of it, as I have."

"Then?"

"Then you're going to spread out most of your weight on the opposite side of the canoe from me."

Ro shifted her weight backwards. "Now what?"

"Now, you're going to lean over, not too far though, as you don't want to tip the canoe over and fall in, and place your hands on my shoulders."

Ro carefully leaned over and placed her hands on the orange life preserver right above Mandy's shoulders. "Now, you're going to push down really hard on my shoulders so that my head is under water. Then you're going to move off to the side.

"You want me to shove you under the water?"

"As hard as you can without falling in."

"Okay then…" Ro said hesitantly. She pushed really hard on Mandy's shoulders, but it was really hard with the life preserver resisting, trying to keep her above the water. The canoe lurched a little which scared Ro enough to back off of Mandy, and jump to one end of the canoe. Mandy quickly popped out of the water, throwing her entire waist over the side of the canoe. Where did she get that kind of energy to lift herself out of the water like that? Mandy was now leaning over the edge of the canoe. It was Ro's weight on the other side that kept them from tipping over. Mandy quickly crawled the rest of the way into the canoe. "You see? Easy!"

"How did you do that?" Ro asked.

"The force of the preserver trying to float will rocket you out of the water. If you forced a beach ball under the water it would shoot into the air several feet once you let go of it."

"That's mega schway" Ro said, amazed.

"Now, the trick is that when they call for use to get out of the water and back in, we both have to do it at the same time so that we don't have to balance the weight." Now that Ro thought about it. Mandy was really close to her height and weight measurements. They were already pretty well balanced. "They won't let you hang onto the edge while you jump out—and it'd probably rip your arm off or something—so you're going to just jump out, right at the side of the canoe with your arms over your head. As you're jumping out, turn so that you're facing the canoe, and don't jump too high as it might rock the canoe, but just kind of take a high step out of the canoe. It's going to give you the force you need to dunk you in the water and shoot you back out again. When you start coming up again from the water, grab onto the side of the canoe, and pull yourself in, as you saw me do. If we practice it once or twice, we could be in and out in a matter of seconds. You ready to try?"

While she'd felt like she'd just managed to get to a comfortable temperature again, she was willing. "Oh, and one more thing," Mandy added, "I'm always going to jump off on the left side of the canoe, and you'll jump off on the right."

"Even if we switch places?"

"Even if we switch places."

"Ready?"

"I guess."

"ABANDON CANOE!"

Ro stood up and quickly took a large step out of the canoe, turning around to face the canoe as she did so. The ice water covered her head, and then she was shooting up out of the water. The life preserver felt like it was slipping up over her head. It wasn't holding her properly. She caught the edge of the canoe as she was coming up, but she didn't have enough energy to pull herself over the edge. Luckily as she was hanging on the edge it was enough balance for Mandy to make it back in. "It didn't work," Ro commented, holding onto the edge of the canoe.

"Your life preserver isn't tight enough. Let me pull the straps for you," she offered. She leaned over the side of the canoe and began to yank on the straps. Ro felt the life preserver tighten a little. "Now I'm going to dunk you and I want you to try to crawl in."

They repeated the process that Ro did for Mandy the first time. She made it half way into the canoe, and Mandy had to pull her the rest of the way in. Her legs almost felt too cold to move. "This isn't going to work out," she said disheartened.

"You're letting this one bad experience get to you. Even worse, was it really wasn't that bad. I just forgot to tell you to tighten your straps before you did it. This next try is going to be much better." As Ro's life preserver had settled back down to her chest again, Mandy began to tighten the straps even more. To felt like someone was hugging her really tightly. It made her think of Zee for some reason… But, he rarely ever hugged her. He held her close to him, or he carried her sometimes, but he never really hugged her, tightly. It was a shame. This feeling of being squeezed felt very reassuring and comforting.

"One more time?"

"Yeah. I just wish the water wasn't so cold."

"ABANDON CANOE!"

Ro repeated the process, but this time the life preserver didn't hike up above her head, but stayed with her. She felt herself pop out of the water, and immediately threw herself over the side of the canoe. It was simple enough to pull her legs in and resume her position at the back. Wow! She did it!

"I told you so!" Mandy laughed. Maybe she could do this after all. "That's all I wanted to practice for today. We can go back to the dock now."

"You don't want to practice switching places?"

"I didn't want to take up your time, but we can if you think you've got time."

"How long has it been?"

"About forty five minutes," Mandy checked her waterproof watch.

"Ten minutes won't hurt."

Mandy grinned. "For switching places, I'm going to walk over you, and you'll just slide on your but along the bottom to the front, or back."

Good, Ro didn't think she could stand up in the canoe without falling out, much less walk. "SWITCH PLACES!" Mandy yelled.

Ro dropped off of the seat of the canoe, and scooted her way over to the front of the canoe. Mandy took large strides over her to the back of the canoe. The canoe didn't rock at all! Ro surmised that Mandy must secretly be a gymnast to have that sense of balance. Zee would be really good at walking in a canoe, she guessed, but he wouldn't be able to participate because he couldn't jump out of the canoe into the water.

They'd easily switched the one direction, but just to be sure they practiced switching back. It was a flawless maneuver. "Good job. Let's head back. Laura is waiting on the dock."

"Laura?"

"She was with us last night."

"Oh! I remember." Ro felt a little bad. She'd been around Laura for the whole week without having known her name. "I feel so bad for not knowing her name!"

"Don't be. She wouldn't want you to be."

"What were the names of the other girls?" Ro asked, feeling embarrassed still for having to ask.

"Heather's over there doing laps with Carrie. Heater has the long brown hair, and Carrie is in the blue bathing suit."

And there was Zee on the dock, carefully watching their clothes. He actually looked a little nerve-wrecked. Watching Ro out there in the middle of the lake, and him unable to be near in case she fell in and got caught under the canoe was what was tormenting him. He felt much relieved to see them returning to the dock. Ro climbed out of the canoe, while Laura climbed in. Zee had gotten up, and was holding her towel out for her, as well as his towel. He didn't need it as he hadn't even gotten wet.

"Thanks," Ro said, wrapping the towel around her torso, tying the end in a knot so it'd stay up. She took her neatly folded clothes from him but didn't bother to put them on. She slipped on her shoes, not bothering to put on any socks. "See you tonight," she said to Mandy.

"Have fun hiking!"

As they got near the end of the dock Zee noticed that Heather was near the shore part of her lap, he called out to her, "Is there anything you want me to do with your clothes? I'm going to be leaving to go hiking with Ro."

Heather stopped swimming and treaded water in place to answer him. "You can just leave them there. I was just coming in!"

Excellent timing. He and Ro walked to their campsite to let Jennifer know they'd be out hiking. "Just you two?" she asked.

"Just us two," Ro repeated.

"If you're going to go hiking I'd like to see someone else go with you. That way if one of you gets hurt someone else can run for help while one of you stays with the injured person."

Just great, the buddy system wasn't going to be good enough. They couldn't ask Mandy to come with them as she was canoeing. Jennifer could read the disappointed look on their faces.

"It's a fairly hazard free trail so I guess I could just let you to go if you took a radio or something to let me know if something happens…And you both are first aid certified… But camp rules don't permit me from letting you go swimming there without a third person present."

"Oh, no, we weren't planning on going swimming," Ro insisted. "I'm just in my swimming suit because we just got back from the dock."

"Oh, well that's fine then."

"Is a cell phone okay instead of a radio." Zee asked.

"If you get reception up here."

"I do."

"Then let me give you my number."

They returned to their tent so that Ro could put on her clothes again and they could pick up a small first aid kit to carry with them. "You going to change out of your swimsuit?" Zee asked her.

It was fairly dry, which was a good excuse to just put her clothes on over it, but that wasn't why she was choosing not to change out of it. "No." She put her shirt and pants back on over her bathing suit, and put on her socks.

They set off hiking down the trail to the hidden falls. At the junction they made a right rather than a left. The trail was downhill for a very short time, but was mostly uphill. It had to be for the water to be running into the lake. They hiked in silence for the most part of the trail, as it was tiring to be talking and hiking up hill at the same time. They could hear the small creek of water off in the distance, but the trail apparently didn't follow along side of it. However had marked this trail wasn't concerned with plotting out the shortest distance to the falls, but the most scenic. There was lots of foliage and green trees, but no breathtaking view of a valley, or the edge of the mountain.

As Ro wasn't taking the initiative to start a conversation, Zee didn't feel like disturbing her by starting one. They hiked for several minutes. They knew they were getting closer from the increasing dull roar of a water fall. "We're getting close!" Ro exclaimed. She found renewed strength and picked up her pace.

The creek began to run along side the trail and they came into view of the water fall. It was very impressive, thought it was much smaller than Ro had imagined. The water was only falling the short distance of about twenty feet. The disappointing factor was that while she'd thought that there would be several water falls, there really only was one. The water fall was spread out over a wide distance, and had several broken spaces between the falling sheet of water, making it appear like several small water falls. There was a really shallow pond, that collected the water, then channeled it into the small creek which ran into the lake. "We're here!"

So they were. He was trying really hard to analyze what made this setting so beautiful and romantic as Ro deemed it. There were several ferns around the edge of the pond, and a couple of rocks. He'd seen prettier settings on post cards. But, they were seeing this in person, so that had to count for something. Ro looked around to see if anyone else was there with them. They seemed to be alone. She took off her pants, folded them, then set them on a rock. She still kept her shirt on.

"Ro, what are you doing?" Zee asked.

"I'll just be wading. Don't worry, I won't be swimming, like we said we wouldn't." It seemed like they were still breaking the rules somehow. She took a small step into the water. It was actually warm! The pond was shallow enough so that it could be heated up by the sunlight. She took a few steps out so that she was in knee-deep water. The water wasn't warm anymore, but did get cooler. It was very pleasant compared to what the lake water felt like. She walked out further until the water was up to her thighs.

"I don't think you should go out any further," he cautioned her. "There might be an undertow or possible sharp rocks that could be dangerous." He couldn't help but worry about her. She'd saved his life by rescuing him from the feds and by helping him to get around in this human world. In return, he would protect hers.

"This is as far as I'm going to go. But you worry too much. These water falls aren't that big, and they're really spaced out. And—there's not a single rock that I've stepped over so far. It's all just a really fine, mushy clay type ground." She squished her toes in it. It felt really good and relaxing. "Oh, Zee, if only you could feel this!"

He wished he could. He really did. But he couldn't. He'd only be able to analyze how fine the dirt specks were, and imagine how they would compare to other substances that had the same density. Ro began to kick the water with her feet. It was tons of fun seeing the diamond specks go flying through the air as the caught the sunlight.

"Come on in!" she insisted.

"I can't."

"Sure you can. No one's here."

Why was she insisting? She knew well enough that he couldn't experience the same enjoyment he could. "It's not smart."

She began to take large, sloshy steps towards him. "You'll just be missing out if you don't." He didn't seem persuaded at all. "Oh, come on! No one's here!"

He quickly looked around the entire area, then scanned again with his X-ray vision. No one was hiding behind any of the rocks. He removed his feminine hologram, and resumed his regular stature, then took two steps into the water. It was a good thing that his titanium alloy wouldn't rust. Even on his robotic face Ro could see that he wasn't amused. It was hard to tell what Zee's emotions were when he was in his synthoid form. It nearly lacked expression entirely. She hated it. It wasn't fit for the being that it contained inside of it. It could express Zeta, but not Zee.

"Not like that!"

Of course, it would be foolish for him to get caught in this form. He began to shrink, and he replaced his feminine appearance. His hologram, right above his calves where the water reached was blurred. He could see his metal skin right above the first two inches where the water reached. From there it gradually resumed it's realistic appearance and didn't become so washed out. He knew why the hologram did this. It typically worked by creating an entire field around him, working in select sections of his body. The section that was under water wasn't activated at all, and the section right above his knee was working in perfect condition. The section at his knee was what was struggling as half was in the water, while the other half wasn't. This was the wishy washy part that looked unrealistic. "Better?" he asked.

Ro surveyed him, holding her chin with one hand, and resting her other hand on her hip. She was tired of seeing him in that appearance. She was almost forgetting that he was really a guy underneath it all. "Can we just pretend that we're not at camp for a while?" she asked, almost in a pleading tone. She was playing with the dirt at her feet with her big toe, looking down at the dirt swirls in the water it made before the water became cloudy in his particular area.

Why did she have to make things hard for him to guess? Couldn't she just tell him what it was that she wanted? He wondered what portion of his confusion was based on the fact that he was generally under a masculine persuasion, and what part was just his own lack of programming to understand human emotion. And what percent was Ro just being indiscrete? Surely if he thought about it long enough it would come to him. "You want me to pretend that the feds are after us?"

What a space case he was. She'd have to spell it out for him. She walked through the water, more easily once it was down to her knees again. She found she couldn't look him in the face as she explained, "I guess, I miss seeing you as you usually are… I mean it's fun having a best friend here at girls camp, but it's been so long I think I'm forgetting what you usually look like." She'd emphasized the "girls" part of camp.

She like his masculine holomorph better than she liked this feminine. In a second, when Ro looked up Zee was before her. "Better?" he asked, remembering to use his regular voice.

"Much better." She almost wanted to reach her arms around him and tell him how good it was to have him back, but he'd never really gone anywhere. What did she mean "almost" ? She did want to reach her arms around him. And why shouldn't she? She slid her arms though his holograph and found his waist. She hugged it gently, lightly resting her head on his chest. "This week has been really fun," she said, "Thanks for being a part of it." He was about to compulsively wrap his arms around her as well when she released him. Someone was coming.

If he'd been paying closer attention he might have heard them sooner. Then again, with the monotonous droning of the water falls, it was hard to hear anyone coming. This person wasn't coming from the trail though. It was coming from the top of the water falls! It wasn't just one person either. It was several.

"Looks like this is the end," a young male voice was saying above them.

"Bucky?" Ro asked, then shouted.

"Someone call?" he asked. His face next appeared at the top of the water fall, off to the side.

"Ro! Zee! What are you doing here?" he asked.

"We were going to ask you the same question!"

"Hey guys! Check this out!" Bucky called his friends over. One by one faces began to appear at the top of the water fall along side Bucky. "How do we get down?" Bucky asked.

"You think I know?" Ro retorted.

"Wait right there, we're going to find a way down," Bucky called to them.

Like they would dream of leaving. This was far too interesting to walk away from. Ro distanced herself from Zee a little. Bucky and his friends disappeared from the top of the waterfall. Ro truly wondered how they were going to get down. They didn't look prepared to swim so she didn't think that they were going to jump down. She wasn't sure about how deep the water would be either. She patiently waited for a few minutes. The sound of twigs breaking and bushes rustling to the side of them let them know they were coming closer. They'd found a way around the side of the water falls and had managed to climb down.

Bucky and his friends were dressed in various patterns of camouflage. They all looked rather dirty and sweaty as well. They'd been hiking for some time it looked like. "What are you doing here?" Ro asked him.

"Been hiking, and a little exploring" he said simply.

"Well, good job. You found someone."

"We weren't looking for you."

"Then what were you looking for?"

"We were actually following this one trail… It ended at the creek above us. So we decided to do a little exploring and rock hopping and followed the creek and found ourselves here. We knew it had to dump into the lake as we'd been hiking up hill to get to it. We just didn't expect to find this."

"Welcome to hidden falls," Ro said sarcastically. Her sarcasm was laced with a little sourness for Bucky having intruded on her small sanctuary. But, as she was a little happy to see him, she wouldn't be too hard on him.

"Hidden falls, really?" One of the boys behind Bucky asked. "Are there any girls nearby?"

"EXCUSE ME!" Ro snapped. What did he think was in front of him?

"Oh sorry. I didn't mean to insult you it's just that…"

What, was she not pretty enough for his tastes? "I'm just what?" she glowered.

"Available," he squeaked. Ro had this look in her eyes that sent chills up his spine—chills more cold that the ones he got from jumping into the lake.

If he'd meant to say "pretty", but had changed his mind and given her safe answer instead she'd never know. Still, she wasn't really single… It must have just seemed that way because she was hugging Zee. But how could he have seen that? They weren't in sight when she'd done it. She'd heard them coming before they'd have been in sight. Or maybe just seeing them together led him to that conclusion?

"So, how far is your camp from here?" Bucky asked.

"A few minutes hike. It's all downhill so it should be easier."

"Thank goodness. We've had our share of physical exercise of the day."

Everyone behind him muttered and nodded in agreement. "You're still going to hike back," Zee commented.

"Yeah, but it will be shorter if we go around this way."

"What makes you think you can just come through our camp because it's shorter?"

"We let you come through ours."

His smug look made Ro's temper flare a little. He was right, but did he have to rub it in? "You can try, but we're not prepared to escort you through."

"No need, we'll take care of it ourselves."

She hoped that he really was capable of taking care of himself and that they didn't get caught or sent home. "How long do you have until you have to head back?" she asked.

"Not long. We might be a little late as it is."

"I guess that you should probably start back soon then."

"We should accompany them," Zee commented.

It was probably the nice thing to do. "I'll get my shoes and pants on, then," Ro said. But, as she turned to the rock that she'd put her pants on, they were gone! Did she put them on another rock? She hurried over to the rock, lightly stepping over the smaller pebbles that surrounded it. Her feet quickly turned brown from the fine dirt mixed in with the pebbles. She searched on the ground around the rock. Where had her pants gone? "Zee, did you put them somewhere?" she asked frantically.

"I haven't. I've been here with you."

"This had better not be your idea of a practical joke!" the turned on Bucky.

"Don't look at us! We haven't been anywhere near those rocks. We came from around the side over there, remember?"

How did she know that there weren't more of them hiding in the bushes, ready to steal her things when she was preoccupied with them. "You swear?" she asked him.

"Honest! We didn't take your pants! We were just hiking!"

She looked at each one of the boys. None of them looked guilty, or that they were trying to pretend to be innocent. They didn't look like they were part of a larger operation either. "I can't just walk back like this!" Ro exclaimed. She wasn't wearing anything but a bathing suit and a shirt! Walk—she looked to where she'd left her shoes. It would he hard to walk in her bare feet. Her shoes an socks were still there, luckily. She still couldn't believe that her pants were gone. She looked around one more time for them but they were gone.

"What's the big deal?" Bucky asked.

"I can't come back to the camp looking like this!" Sure she could explain that she'd only been wading, but she just as easily could have been swimming. And how would it look if she was found with out any pants and a group of boys trailing behind her? It would not be good at all. Also, if she tripped, she'd have no protection for her legs. What if the mosquitoes came out too? She hadn't thought about that. Here she was by a large concentration of water with no repellent on. Her legs would probably be spotted with bites by the time she got back. What was most upsetting, was that her pants were gone to begin with. Someone had took them, but who?

Ro began to lead the group back onto the trail. She thought looking for foot prints would be helpful, but she really couldn't distinguish what were her and Zee's prints, and what were the intruder's. Zee could though. It's a large group of them. There are about six different sets of prints here. Six. Wasn't that the number of towels they collected on the first day here at camp? Oh no. Please don't let it have been Redwood. They would love nothing more than to get Ro in trouble from having been with a bunch of boys at the hidden falls. Then again, it wasn't her fault Bucky had showed up. But what about Zee? Had they seen him holomorph? She felt absolutely sick. Her pants linked her with the crime scene. She had to get the back, or to stop Redwood before they told a counselor. They were going to be in big trouble, especially if Redwood went to fetch a counselor, and bring them back with them. Even worse, what if they went to call the feds? "We have to hurry!" Ro shouted, and began to lead the party back down the trail. They had to catch up with them. Undoubtedly they would be running back as well.

One of the boys asked while struggling to keep up with the group. "Don't you have another friend? She was, pretty dark-haired... fair skin?" he asked.

They thought that Zee was pretty? Oh no. She couldn't have them falling for a make-believe girl who was actual a male synthoid in disguise. "Yeah. She's back at camp. She didn't come with me." Please let him as well as all of Bucky's friends be simple minded and not realize the similarities between Zee, and Zee. She purposely didn't mention his name, and his girl name as she didn't want them to connect the similarities between the names with the persons.

Another boy asked, "What cabin are you staying at, Zee? We haven't seen you all week!"

They were in trouble now. "I'm actually a park ranger for the camp grounds. I'm not really one of the campers," he lied. What a smart, safe answer.

"Why weren't you in uniform then?" More trouble.

"I wasn't on duty yet."

"Didn't you have a friend with you? What was his name…"

"Ron," Ro said quickly. She then cursed herself for having just picked a name so similar to her own! It was her fault because she was thinking about the similarities in Zee's names so of course she would think of one similar to her own and accidentally spit it out. She especially cursed herself for having thought of such a dumb name as she hadn't mentioned their name when she was there.

"Haven't seen much of him either. Is he also a park ranger?"

"Not really," Ro spoke quickly.

They were hurrying down the path when Zee suddenly threw his arm out in front of Ro, stopping her so quickly she nearly slipped and fell over. "They're coming!"

Who was coming? Agents, or counselors and Redwood? She couldn't see much of them as they were really far away on the path below them. Small specs, but they were getting closer fairly quickly. Should they hide? Half of the boys darted behind trees on the path. "Ro! Do you still have that gadget I gave you from gizmo shack? The bracelet type thing?" Zee asked her a little loudly.

Dr. Edmund's bracelet? He had it. She'd returned it to him shortly after they'd arrived back at the camp. While his back was to Bucky, but facing Ro he surreptitiously pulled it out of his chest and handed it to her. "Yeah…" she stuttered. He'd been referring to it in code so no one would recognize it for what it was.

"Use it!" he instructed her.

She quickly put it on, and the image of a young boy began to cover her, complete with pants and a different shirt. She was in disguise now, and her pants problem was solved! She just wished that the hologram didn't look so much like herself, but there wasn't much they could do now.

"Ron!" One of the boys commented. "So you had her use the bracelet so you could sneak her into the boy's camp? Sneaky," he remarked.

"Get out from behind the trees!" Zee instructed them. Confused, as it'd been their instinct to hide, they crept out from behind the trees. "Start walking down the path, slowly and casually. Act like nothing's wrong!"

Hesitantly they got in their formation again, and began to walk down the slopes again. In a few minutes the group of six girls camp trooping up the path in front of them along with their camp director, Marianne, and Jennifer. It was Redwood, alright. Jennifer looked worried while Marianne looked smug. The director looked mad.

"YOU there!" the director shouted pointing to the group of boys. What are you doing here?" she demanded. Each looked at each other with a befuddled look.

"Sorry?" Zee spoke. "Is something wrong?"

"You've crossed over the line of the boy's camp, and are now in the girls' camp boundaries."

Zee's face changed to an apologetic one. "Oh, we're very sorry! We were following this trail from our camp, and found this one creek. We were just following it to see where it ended up when we found this trail. We're so sorry! We didn't realize this was a part of your camp!"

"You have some really beautiful water falls," Bucky added. He could see where this was going.

Zee's performance was so good, Ro almost believed that they were innocent. She was going to make a point of not speaking though as she couldn't really disguise her voice.

"Where is she! Where's that girl that was with you!" an accusing voice came from behind the director. It was Cynthia. She held Ro's pants in her tight fist.

"Who?" Zee asked.

"Ro, she's looking for Ro," Jennifer said humbly. She didn't say anything at all about how Ro had said she wanted to go hiking with Zee to the hidden falls. It would get her in trouble for having let them off with just a cell phone as a third person. Then again, if things became serious, she'd have to confess her fault. Ro's life was more important than her job. She was feeling rather guilty at the moment for possibly having some responsibility in this.

"We saw her down at the water falls!" another venomous voice came from the group behind the director. "She was with him," she said, specifically pointing at Zee, "and the rest of them!"

"'We just came from the water falls. No one was there," Jerry spoke up. He'd caught onto what was going on as well.

"I have proof she was there!" Cynthia seethed.

"You have a pair of pants, how is that proof?" Bucky snidely asked. He loved revenge, even if it wasn't his own.

"These are hers!"

"Is her name sewn in them?" Bucky asked. "How do we know that they're not yours, and that you're trying to pass them off as this Ro girl's? And are you the kind of person to stoop to stealing someone else's pants because you're too poor to afford your own?"

Someone behind Bucky oohed, "Burn!"

The director shouted for silence. She really wasn't taking the situation well. Jennifer had lightened up. She knew that something was up, and that these boys were covering for Ro and Zee somehow, but she didn't know how they were exactly doing it or why. In her heart, though, she knew Ro and Zee were safe somewhere, and she was highly relieved. But she was still concerned as Cynthia had been complaining about Ro and group of boys, but not about Zee. Where was Zee in all of this? Hadn't they gone off together?

"She's hiding somewhere! I know it!" Cynthia raged. She stepped out in front of the group and began to push her way through the group of boys. Ro squeezed her way to the back of the group.

"Cynthia!" Marianne restrained her.

"We'll be going to check and see if she's there in person, thank you," the director commented. "But I can't just leave you young gentlemen here, and I can't let you go unescorted through our camp…" She'd emphasized the young part more than the gentlemen part.

"Jennifer, please escort these young men back to their camp, and see to it that their counselors are notified of the situation, and how they were found over here." Ro was glad that Jennifer would be escorting them rather than Marianne.

"That's not fair!" Carl protested. "How were we supposed to know that this was your camp's trail?" He was speaking out of turn, rather than as a part of Zee's plot. Then again, getting in trouble had never been a part of his plan. He'd assumed they'd be let off the hook for a honest mistake, but it didn't seem that way.

"The trails are unmarked as to whether they're part of the girls' camp or boys' camp," Jennifer added quietly.

It would be an injustice indeed for them to be punished for being ignorant of this. Especially if the trails were unmarked. Still, the director couldn't help but think that there were up to mischief to begin with. The fact that they managed to find their way into the girls' camp scared her. "I guess it would be unfair. Just take them back to their camp then, and explain to their counselor the misunderstanding."

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Could Zee scheme, or could he scheme?

"But he's the one she was with!" Alexandria pointed at Zee.

She didn't mention anything about Zee being a synthoid. None of them mentioned seeing Zee in his girl appearance there either. They must have walked in while they were distracted when they were talking with Bucky and his friends.

"I'm sorry. I haven't been seeing anyone from your camp," Zee said--oh so innocently.

Ro was waiting for Cynthia to spontaneously combust from anger.

It was Jennifer who noticed that something was weird. She looked over at Ro. "What's your name?" she asked Ro.

"That's Ron," one of the boys spoke up so Ro didn't have to answer.

"Is your name Ron?" she asked him. Everyone laughed. Jennifer took a step closer so that she was standing in front of Ro. She looked deeply into her eyes. "What's your name?"

"Ron," Ro's voice squeaked. Jennifer's gaze seemed seem to show that suspected something was up, but not that Ron was really Ro in disguise.

"Ron here reminds me of Ro. He's got blonde hair and blue eyes like Ro, and he's about the same height, weight and build as Ro. Could it be that you've mistaken him for Ro?" Jennifer asked Cynthia.

"I did not! I know I saw her!"

Unfortunately the director seemed to be leaning towards Jennifer's explanation more than Cynthia's. "I have her pants!" Cynthia shouted.

"I'm not going to get into how wrong it was for you to take them, but that would be pending on if you really did take them from the scene or if you snuck into her tent—which would be far worse of an offense. I would have to call your parents if it turned out that you were sneaking into other girl's tents and taking their things. Are you sure that these are Ro's and that you found them on a rock at the hidden falls?"

Ro would have imagined that Cynthia would be crying from frustration, but no tears were running down her face. She was shrieking in rage, "I saw her! These are hers!"

Her friends behind her all testified the same thing. However, they were unsure now if it really was Ro that they'd seen. They would continue to stand behind the fact that they'd found the pants rather than take them as they didn't want the director to call their parents.

"Very well. I will have to see for myself."

"I'll bet she knows we're coming by now and she's gone off into hiding," Marianne commented. "You've certainly been yelling loud enough, Cynthia." Marianne was getting the strong feeling that Ro would not be there. She would start planting the doubt now so that if Ro really wasn't there, her girls wouldn't be in too much trouble for this stunt. "There might be some unmarked trails like the one the boys followed that Ro might have gone off to pursue."

Smart excuse. Ro wondered why they didn't try to back track and go through the boys' camp then try to sneak in back to the girls' camp later.

"Let's hurry then," the director said, pushing on ahead on the trail.

Jennifer lingered behind to take the group of boys back to her camp. She didn't start walking immediately, but waited until the director and Marianne and her girls had gone off ahead some distance. She stepped out in front of the group of boys and addressed them. "Boys. Ro is one of my campers. I know that something's up, and that you may be covering for her. But, please I need to know. I she and Zee okay?"

"We'd like to tell you that they are, but we can't as we didn't see anyone there," Bucky apologized. "If they were heading to the falls, we would have seen them on our way here."

Jennifer smiled, but was only a little reassured. "Maybe she changed her mind, and they didn't go to the falls, but on another trail?" she said hopefully.

"I'll be that's what it is," Zee tried to sound reassuring.

Jennifer wished that she'd taken Zee's number so that she could call them. "I hope they turn up soon," she sighed.

She then began to lead them back along the trail. They made it back to the main road of the camp and began to walk along it. Girls were poking their heads out of their tents to get a glimpse at the parade of boys going by. Ro couldn't help but blush. She wondered if the hologram she was wearing was blushing. Is this was Zee felt like when he was over at Bucky's cabin in his feminine form? Then again, he wouldn't feel this kind of embarrassment, would he?

At the border of the girls' and boys' camp, there was one of the counselors from the girls' side. Jennifer would have to go into the boys' camp to talk to one of their counselors as there wasn't one patrolling the road.

"Uh… this is actually our cabin," Bucky spoke up as Jennifer came up to it. She'd escorted them back, but hadn't found one of their counselors yet to let him know what was up.

Ro already knew she was going to let them off easy. It wasn't worth her time to hunt one down when she could be cleaning up their campsite, or helping girls work on their skits. "I'm going to let you off here then. I trust that when you see your counselor you'll tell him what's up."

"Oh, of course," Bucky said.

"Liar," Jennifer called his bluff. "No matter though. I'm sure you'll boast about it to each other and your counselor will find out sooner or later." That was probably true. "If you find out anything about Ro or Zee, please, feel free to send word over. With one of your counselors, mind you."

With that she headed back to the camp to look for Ro and Zee. "Inside, everyone," Bucky instructed everyone.

Inside of their cabin Ro dared to turn off the bracelet. "We've got to get back soon!" Ro exclaimed. "Poor Jennifer! Can't you see she's worried sick about us?"

"We?" Bucky commented. "I'm not going anywhere."

Nice save. She'd forgotten that Zee was a guy again, so she had to account for the fact that they didn't know he was really a girl as well. "Right, sorry."

"Well, I've got to get going back to my patrol," Zee excused himself. "See you guys later!" He turned to Ro, and winked. It seemed only proper if he were really pretending that she was his girlfriend. He left the cabin and hurried down the road. He'd only have to kill a few minutes before returning to the cabin to reassure Ro that he had a plan.

He pulled out the phone and dialed a number, then held it up to his ear. In his feminine voice, but in an extra flirty tone he spoke, "HI! I'd like a delivery made to camp Pico Blanco, cabin B3. Yes, you remembered me! Just something quick. I don't have a lot of time to wait. Maybe an order of crazy bread? I know it's not big, but I can make it worth your time… Thank you very much. Twenty minutes? No problem. I'll be impatiently waiting!" He did a quick girly laugh then hung up. Things were set. He then turned and headed back to Bucky's cabin. –Twenty minutes, the guy would be speeding to get here that quickly.

He knocked the same rhythmic pattern on the door that the boy had used the time that they'd been escorted from the boy's cabin on the far end to Bucky's cabin.

The door opened. Zee was standing there in his feminine appearance, looking a little surprised. "It worked!" he exclaimed. He stepped into Bucky's cabin.

"Zee? What are you doing here?" Ro asked.

"Zee? You have two friends named Zee?" someone asked.

"Yeah. The park patrol on, and Zee," Ro smiled. He was back.

"What are you doing over here?" Zee asked. "I was coming over here to see if I could use one of your computers to check my email."

"I got hung up at the hidden falls. I ran into this crowd, would you believe it? But it's a long story. –Listen, I need to get back. They're looking for me, and for you as well."

"I ordered some crazy bread from the pizza place a few minutes ago as payment for being able to use one of your computers." Like a pizza delivery guy would really go out of his way to deliver crazy bread. It had to be because Zee tipped him so much yesterday. "It will be here in about twenty minutes."

They might be a little late for dinner, but it was better late than never. "We need to get going right about now, but you're welcome to use the computer," Bucky motioned toward his laptop. The reason Jennifer hadn't seen any counselors was because they were all at an activity that Bucky was supposed to be at now. The boys quickly packed up and headed off, leaving them alone in the cabin. They didn't have a chance to talk to Bucky about whether or not he'd had any luck finding anything else on his computer.

In twenty minutes, the pizza delivery guy arrived, right on time. "You found the place!" Zee said in the same tone he'd used on the phone. Ro couldn't believe it. He was flirting with the delivery guy!

"It was easy. I came here yesterday, remember?"

"I know, but that time we were at the road entrance…" Ro knew there had to be some reason for this act.

"This your cabin?" he asked Zee.

What a stupid question. Like Zee would invite him in. It also definitely wasn't this guy's place to even be asking!"

"My younger brother stays in this cabin. I was just over here to check my email. But it took a while because his computer was having problems," Zee said sweetly. Ro felt sick. This was just wrong.

"I hope things worked out then."

"They did. Thanks for your concern."

"I have your order," the delivery boy remembered.

"How much do I owe you?" Zee asked.

While he wanted to tell Zee that it was free of charge he couldn't because it was a delivery, and a rather small one at that. "There's a minimum delivery fee…"

"No problem," Zee said. He pulled out his cred card and heavily paid and tipped the guy. Unfortunately this caused him to think that Zee was even more keen towards him than he really was.

Zee had other things in mind. "Thank you," he said, then took the crazy bread from him and began walking with Ro back towards their camp.

"Need a lift?" he asked as they walked off. It wasn't company policy, but who would find out?

"Sure!" Zee chimed.

Ro was appalled now. The delivery guy held the door open to his truck. "I'm Steve, by the way.'

"I'm Zee," Zee said. "Coming?" he asked Ro.

There had to be a good reason for this. Ro climbed into the truck next to him. The delivery guy turned around and started driving them to the girls' camp. He was stopped at the border line buy the counselor on duty. Zee and Ro slouched in the seat so that the counselor wouldn't see them.

"Just making a delivery," he waived off her scrutinizing eye. She let him pass, but was very wary about the matter.

"Where do you want to be dropped off?" he asked.

"Right here's fine," Zee told him, sitting up again. "Sorry about that back there. We're not actually not supposed to leave the boundary of the camp."

"So that's what the patrol is for."

"Yeah, thanks for the ride. It would have been a long way walking back."

Too bad most people didn't keep barf bags in their glove compartments, because Ro felt she was going to need one.

The pizza guy brought his truck to a stop in the middle of the road. They weren't quite at the campsites yet, but pretty much out of the eye of the counselor at the border. "Thanks!" Zee said, getting out of the truck along with Ro.

"You're welcome," he replied, then turned around and drove off. He would already be in trouble if anyone found out he'd given them a ride. He didn't need to get in trouble for flirting with them as well. He wasn't going to press the relationship any further. It had been fun, and at least he was well paid for this trip.

Zee handed Ro the bag of crazy bread, "Don't throw the bag away. We need it."

Ro took the bag from him, but didn't really feel like eating. She couldn't believe what had just happened. "You were flirting with the delivery guy!!!" Ro accused him.

Why was she upset? Was she jealous? He hadn't been Ro's type, so he didn't think this was the case ."I'm sorry, did I do it wrong? I thought I was using the same tone and gestures that you use when you want to persuade someone to do a special favor for you."

Did this synthoid have to monitor her every move? Sure she'd used her feminism to get things that she wanted, but seeing Zee do it to someone else made her…jealous? She felt as mad as the time that Zee had kissed Tiffy, her sister from her adopted family. She felt like she'd been slapped across her face. But why was she so mad? It wasn't like Zee was flirting with a girl! How ridiculous. Synthoids weren't capable of real flirting, or were they? There were so many new peculiar personality traits in Zee that she knew were strictly a result from the conscience chip. Was it possible that he had more typical emotions than the average synthoid as a result from the module as well? Oay, everything about Zee seemed like a big mystery. Her only comfort was knowing that she seemed like just as big of a mystery to him as he was to her.

"Playing on someone's emotions with your sexuality isn't something you should do for favors," she tried to tactfully instruct him. She made a mental note that she herself would be more careful about watching herself to see that she wasn't being a hypocrite.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to make sure he was here in time so that we could make it to dinner on time. I couldn't wait for him to put a pizza in the oven for a delivery so I had to convince him to come out here with a small order, regardless of policy."

"I'm sorry for nagging or scolding. You did well," she complimented him.

As they began to walk towards the campsites girls all over began shouting their names. Apparently everyone was looking for them. Ro stupidly held the bag of crazy bread in her hands. It wasn't long before Jennifer was there to greet them. She hugged Ro tightly, "I'm so glad you're safe." Before she could reach over to hug Zee, he stepped back.

"Zee's a little touchy," Ro explained.

"Sorry," Jennifer apologized.

In a few minutes, the director was summoned as well. Redwood conveniently joined the crowd. They had been scolded for having led everyone on a crazy goose chase. The would have been severely scolded if it weren't for the fact that Ro and Zee were actually missing. The director looked absolutely exhausted, but with her fair share of irritation as she asked, "Do girls know what a scare you've put everyone through?"

"Scare?" Ro asked innocently.

"What's going on?" Zee asked.

Jennifer explained to Ro, "Cynthia said that she saw you with a boy at the hidden falls. Naturally concerned we went to look for you. But, you weren't there! That's when we started to look for you and couldn't find you anywhere! We were worried that you and Zee had gone off hiking by yourselves and that you both might have gotten hurt."

"Oh, no! We just went to the edge of the road to wait for the pizza delivery guy," Zee explained. The bag in Ro's hand was proof that they weren't lying. It even still felt warm.

"Are these yours?' someone asked. A pair of pants was shoved in front of Ro's face.

"Thos aren't mine," Ro said, trying to sound casual. She wasn't going to be mean enough to set them up with having stolen them from her tent. After all, they really were her pants.

Cynthia screamed, "Liar! I saw you with those boys!"

"Boys? You mean the pizza delivery guy?"

There was no way Cynthia could win. Ro was holding the bag of crazy bread in her hand, and there was no way Cynthia could prove the pants were Ro's if Ro didn't admit they were hers.

The director had had it. "Girls. I am very disappointed with you. Setting someone up for a phone call home or expulsion from camp, is not the kind of pranks we approve of here. Your parents will all be getting phone calls home. Keep this up, and you'll be sent home, and you will not be allowed back to this camp ever again! Now, just for the record, whose pants are these really?"

One of the Redwood girls stepped up. They knew no one believed them or ever would believe them. "They're mine," she spoke up. The director had already decided in her mind that they were guilty of trying to set Ro and Zee up. It would be best not to anger the director even more now by continuing to tell the truth. Marianne believed them though. She would prevent the director from being too harsh to their parents, not that their parents really cared. They'd simply call them on their cell phones a minute later and explain what really had happened.

"Thank you," the director sighed, frustrated. "The truth at a last." She wasn't going to further interrogate them and make then confess that they'd never seen Ro either. She'd leave them some dignity.

Ro was trying very hard not to smile. Zee had a serious expression on his face. The director turned to them, "You two are another story. Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?"

"Well… we didn't think that we needed to tell someone where we were going if we were still inside of the camp grounds. We weren't even on the trails," Ro explained. She wouldn't let the director put them on the hot spot. They weren't going to get in trouble.

"I'm concerned with the fact that you invited a stranger onto our premises," the director next addressed the issue of having the delivery guy driving through the campsite.

"We were waiting for him at the road. We didn't invite him into the site. You might want to talk to whichever counselor is on patrol."

The counselor was summoned. "He said he had a delivery…" she said, feeling rather scared for her job.

The director was tired of hearing this bickering. "No more deliveries are to be made inside of the camp. They are all to be picked up at the road entrance. Girls, next time, please tell **several** people where you'll be next time. Now, girls," she said turning to Redwood, "I'll be calling your parents."

News that they were missing had reached the lake and dock, but no one particularly felt concerned to give up their prized canoe to go look for Ro. They could simply say that they'd remain here to make sure that she didn't reappear there. Ro almost thought that she should be a little hurt that Mandy hadn't at least come in to look for them, but she knew that Mandy knew better than to worry about them or if they'd disappeared. If someone said that they were hiking to the falls, it could just have been an excuse for Ro and Zee to sneak over to the boy's camp on the trail she showed them. No one would be able to find them if they were hiding at the boy's camp. She knew they were safe, and suspected that this was actually where they were. She wasn't worried. One thing was for sure, though, she'd be asking them what had happened when they came back.

Most everyone was late to dinner as the excitement of Ro and Zee's return had delayed them in getting to the mess hall. Mandy hadn't wanted to come in from the lake, but the counselor had insisted that she was hungry, and she did want to call it an evening. Mandy sat with Ro and Zee for dinner, but didn't ask them about what really had happened. Too many unsuspecting ears were listening in on their conversation.

There was only one skit tonight as they'd had an extended free time hour, and dinner was late. They'd only planned to have one skit today. The last two skits would be performed tomorrow. Laurel had to do their skit before Redwood, who'd drawn the last card. The skit was, really good. The time you had to prepare did make a difference. What was even more impressive was that the skit seemed really original. Someone from another camp, though, commented that they'd seen a similar skit before at another camp.

"Are we getting up early again?" Ro asked Mandy on their way to the showers.

"No, and that's the best part. We've gotten them two days in a row. They're going to be on their guard tonight. They're going to have a miserable night of sleep, waiting and anticipating for when we'll come, but the best part is we won't be coming at all!"

"What if they had different plans than that? What if they actually plan to come and do something to us. We've only had one prank played on us the entire time."

"The pranks do seem to be highly concentrated on Redwood this year. The boys seemed to have lightened up a bit too. Usually Laurel is hit the worst because we're closest to the edge of their camp. Maybe because we know those guys so well, they've told everyone else at their camp to lay off? But don't get me wrong, several other campsites here have had small pranks on them. Some of the girls said they woke up with make up all over their faces. I'll bet it was just their tent-mates having a little fun, trying to blame the prank on someone else though. Another girl said that someone took her bra and got it wet, then put it in the kitchen freezer. It was returned to her the next morning, frozen solid."

"Should we sleep light too?"

"You can, but I'll bet Jennifer will catch them if they try and sneak over."

"I'm a light sleeper too," Zee offered. He'd definitely be awake all night long.

"No need to worry then!"

A hot shower would have felt nice, especially after swimming in cold water all day long, but by the time that they got in line for the showers, the warm water had run out. Zee wouldn't have known though as he always took a cold shower. He was waiting outside of the shower stall for Ro when someone in the bathrooms loudly shouted, "Does anyone have any tampons?" He found that he didn't know what to do in this awkward moment. He told his hologram to stop looking embarrassed, and as if he didn't know what to do with himself. He began to wonder if she should naturally be carrying tampons on him as a precaution. He'd never had to deal with this thing with Ro before. She took care of herself and her own hygiene. She'd never asked him to go to the store to pick up some. She even spared him from talking about it. "You're a synthoid. This kind of thing shouldn't concern you. You're supposed to understand both gender perspectives. You don't need to feel uneasy about this sort of thing," he told himself. But, he was only trying to fool his own senses. Playing two genders was hard. He was far more experienced at playing the male gender. He was at the point where playing the female gender was actually work. Luckily, another girl had one in her toiletry's bag.

As Ro climbed into her sleeping bag back at the campsite she whispered to Zee, "I really enjoyed today."

"But, Ro, we almost got caught! I nearly revealed myself!"

"Nearly, but didn't. I don't think they know. The feds would have been here by now."

"They might still be coming."

"Then you keep an ear out and we'll bolt if they do. Good night, tin man," she whispered.

Redwood was very careless when they tried to sneak into their campsite at 2:00 in the morning. They clumsily couldn't even made it past the first tent without waking up the girls inside. The girls had turned on their flashlights, looked through their windows to scan the area before going back to bed. Redwood only waited a whole minute before trying to move forward again. "Ten minutes, you've got to wait a whole ten minutes!" Mandy would have said if she'd been there. "Ten minutes makes sure that they've had enough time to fall asleep again. Twenty if you're really not sure."

Apparently, Redwood was only concerned with delivering their packages. Very tiny objects began to rain over their camp, landing in scattered positions everywhere on the ground. It was two minutes before the campers realized what they'd done. Skunk scented stink bombs. The whole camp stank with the putrid smell. Girls were waking up, unable to breath because of the smell. Ro began to cough. She covered her nose with her sleeping bag, but it was still hard to breathe. "Those things should be considered a biochemical hazard," she coughed. Something had to be done. They had to be removed or the smell would never leave. But no one could get near one. Two girls had even thrown up from the bad smell. It wasn't entirely skunk, but had several other putrid smells to it.

Jennifer was going to be the one to hold her breath to get close to one, pick it up and dispose of it, but Zee offered. "I've got a little sinus congestion so I can't smell anything, anyway," he explained. He really was just going to turn off his olfactory sensors to get close enough to them. Also, the smell wouldn't linger on him as he was made of metal, like it would on Jennifer or another camper. She handed him the garbage bag to pick it up in, like how an owner might scoop up their dog's poop. Zee went around and collected all of the stink bombs. What horrible little things they were. He tied the bag off, and the smell was mostly gone, but a large trace of it still lingered. Jennifer instructed girls to take their towels and begin fanning out the area. Other girls donated their body sprays to spray inside of the tents.

Zee was carrying the garbage bag to the dumpsters, but realized that if the trash wasn't immediately picked up, they would continue to smell during the night, as the dumpsters were fairly close to their campsite. He thought about tossing it in the lake, but that would be polluting. He had a much better idea of what to do with the stink bombs.

Redwood had gone off running and laughing after they'd thrown the bombs. His night vision turned on and he scanned for the foot prints, just to make sure. If this was one of Bucky's pranks he wouldn't want to accidentally seek revenge on the wrong group. No, the foot prints were in mass, and while they led away from Redwood's tents, they didn't lead back to them. Some of them had gone back to the bathroom while others appeared to be heading out to another campsite. Perfect. Redwood was trying to pretend that they'd gone to the bathrooms in order to try and convince people of their innocence.

He couldn't wait to sneak into their camp in another few hours as the potency of the stink bombs might have died down. He was lucky that he'd collected them so soon, to prevent their entire smell from dissipating into the Laurel campsite's air. His hologmorph began to change into Cynthia. Cynthia seemed to be the leader among Redwood. She was the safest person's identity to take over. Casually began to walk into the camp. He made his way over to their camping chairs. He found subtle places to hide the stink bombs, which smelled pretty rotten, but not enough to wake up the entire campsite anymore. He placed some under camping chairs, in the frame work. He placed a couple under the tables that they'd be meeting at for their educational hour, and few by their food cupboard. All tomorrow, they would be smelling the stink bombs, but not knowing where they were hidden. They'd be sniffing around for the concentration of the smell, but since he'd placed so many in discrete hiding spots, they'd never find them all. Either way, when they woke up, things would be smelling a little rotten. Laurel would eventually air out over the night because they'd removed the source. Redwood would be stinking until the girls removed all of the bombs, or until they took the smell home with them.

He had three left. He looked at the vacant tent. Redwood was still out playing pranks. He hurried over to their tent. No one was inside. He let himself in, and pulled one of the stink bombs from the bag and began to crumple it in his hand. He looked for one of their bags. Each conveniently had had their name embroidered onto their bags to personalize them. Seeing Cynthia's bag he began to sprinkle whatever it was that made the stink bomb stink so bad, inside of her bag. It sifted to the bottom of the bag, like sand. Now her clothes would smell awful for the rest of the week. He wondered if the smell even washed out… He pulled out another bomb and repeated the process for as two more of the bags. He couldn't say that he hadn't warned them not to leave Ro alone. He quickly exited their tent when he could sense that there were foot steps approaching from off in the distance. He'd made it! But, if he wanted to make this revenge really sweet, he'd linger around a little bit longer… His holomorph began to change as he hid behind a tree. When Cynthia and her friends came back he stepped out from behind the tree, "And where have you been ladies?" he asked in the director's voice.

They stood there, frozen, but not speechless. They'd had an excuse already planned. "We just came back from the bathroom."

"Do I need to send a plumber there? You were gone for a long time."

"That's not your business."

"Get to bed," he finished, then walked off, smiling to himself. He'd given them quite a scare.

"You were gone for a while, we were beginning to worry about you," Mandy said when they got back.

"I had to go some distance out to get rid of the stink bombs in a place where it wouldn't bother us anymore."

"Redwood isn't that far," Mandy laughed. She'd only been joking; she had no idea how truthful it really was.

"Don't be surprised if tomorrow hints of the smell reach your nose," he cautioned them.

Still, before he crawled into the sleeping bag Ro insisted that he be sprayed off as he'd been handling the stink bombs. While Zee had his hologram show small signs that it had been misted by a body spray, the spray was really collecting on his metal body, and was about to slowly roll down the front of it in small droplets. It wouldn't absorb into his "skin." Vanilla Lace, it was a very nice smell.

"So what did you do with them?" Ro asked.

"You'll find out tomorrow morning."


	7. Day 6

Ro found out what'd he'd done that morning, as well as everyone else in the entire camp. There was a small clearing around the girls from Redwood. Zee knew that he'd only put the stink bomb particles into three of their bags, but everyone else in the tent smelled as well. They were fairly desensitized to the smell from having been unsuspectingly sleeping with it all night long. At their campsite that morning, though, they did know that something smelled fishy. Actually, it smelled skunky.

They were first in line for breakfast, something that Ro felt she could really get used to. With her small figure, no one would have guessed that Jennifer was a champion arm wrestler. "This is the last good breakfast that we'll have. Tomorrow they don't cook but just give us prepackaged muffins. Yuck!"

"Sometimes I think the director doesn't really like kids…"

For their educational hour they were actually going to be going on a group hike. They would be going on a longer trail that led to the hidden falls. Apparently if they followed the path on the left, it would eventually lead to the hidden falls, having gone the long way around the mountain. On the hike they would be identifying plants, as well as learning how to make, or recognize emergency signals if they got lost. "I would rather prefer that we made this a biking trip, but the camp doesn't want to deal with storing bikes, or what to do if one of them gets stolen," Jennifer explained. "But we can make this a fun trip, regardless of this fact."

One girl asked, "If we don't like hiking can we stay here?"

"As much as I'd like someone to remain behind to watch the campsite, I'm told that I have to take you all with me. Sorry."

"What if I have asthma? Or what if I have a health condition that prevents me from strenuous walking?"

"Then you should have said that on your medical waiver."

If only she'd actually seen it, Ro might have thought ahead to put that excuse on there. On their way along the trail they sang several songs. They also played several word games. One of these games was very amusing in particular. The object of the game was not to laugh. The person being questioned had to answer every question with, "Grandma's big red toe." They couldn't laugh at all while doing this. The people asking the questions would try to think of questions that would make the person laugh when they responded. Half of the time because they were laughing so much in expectation of the answer, the person would laugh just because it was contagious.

"Let's see…" Mandy thought. "For dinner our chefs cooked up."

"Grandma's big red toe," Ro replied, but she couldn't hold it in. She had to laugh.

It was her turn to quiz Mandy. "Jennifer said that if you ever get lost, this simple object could be used as a sundial…"

"Grandma's big red toe." It was a little funny, but not enough to crack Mandy.

"The counselor's committee decided that anyone found hiding stink bombs in other people's tents had to rub deodorizer onto…"

That did it.

Zee was one tough cookie. No one could crack him. Only Ro knew why. They eventually passed him up, as it was more fun when they could actually get someone to laugh. The jokes became even funnier when they reached someone on a personal interest level.

One girl had an obsession with buying collectible Sleeping Beauty Pins. She'd spent five times the purchase price, buying one at a presale auction, just so she could say she was the "first" to buy one, though she wouldn't be the first to have it in her hands. It would take a few days for the pin to be mailed to her. "Along with her extensive sleeping beauty pin collection, there was a pin of…"

One girl was an anime fanatic. "Sailor Moon had to battle a new evil arch enemy named…"

Another really liked Lord of the Rings. "The one ring that controls Middle Earth was found on…"

"Luke Skywalker battled Darth Vader with…" While finding females interested in sci-fi seemed uncommon, there were a few in their group.

Another game someone invented was to take quotes from movies and to replace one of the words with "pants". Mandy announced, "I've got one from Little Mermaid!" She cleared her throat, getting to the punch line in a round about way by singing the lyrics.

"There you see her   
Sitting there across the way   
She don't got a lot to say   
But there's something about her   
And you don't know why   
But you're dying to try   
You wanna **pants** the girl   
  
Yes, you want her   
Look at her, you know you do   
It's possible she wants you, too   
There is one way to ask her   
It don't take a word   
Not a single word   
Go on and pants the girl   
  
Sing with me now   
Sha-la-la-la-la-la   
My, oh, my   
Look at the boy too shy   
He ain't gonna pants the girl   
Sha-la-la-la-la-la   
Ain't that sad   
Ain't it shame, too bad   
You gonna miss the girl   
  
Now's your moment   
Floating in a blue lagoon   
Boy, you better do it soon   
No time will be better   
She don't say a word   
And she won't say a word   
Until you pants the girl   
  
Sha-la-la-la-la-la   
Don't be scared   
You got the mood prepared   
Go on and pants the girl   
Sha-la-la-la-la-la   
Don't stop now   
Don't try to hide it how   
You wanna pants the girl   
Sha-la-la-la-la-la   
Float along   
Listen to the song   
The song say pants the girl   
Sha-la-la-la-la-la   
Music play   
Do what the music say   
You wanna pants the girl   
  
You've got to pants the girl   
Why don't you pants the girl   
You gotta pantsthe girl   
Go on and pants the girl"

Ro couldn't believe how she'd taken such a beautiful song and had turned it into something to laugh at. She also couldn't believe how beautifully that the word pants fit in with the context of the song. Everything connected, and still made logical sense. It was too much. She was doubled over laughing. She had no idea how Mandy had even been able to finish the song without laughing.

The girl who liked Lord of the Rings submitted a quote from Ghandalf, "There is only one Lord of The Rings, and he does not share his pants" "—Oh, I've got another one by Aragorn! 'Open pants are upon you, whether you would risk them or not. 'Or how about this? 'We slaughtered the orcs and burned their pants!' Or Galandriel? 'I know what it is that you see, for it is also in my pants.'" She had several more, but others wanted a turn to speak so she finally settled down, and just told everyone to discover them for themselves.

They reached the hidden falls, where they stopped to eat the sack lunches the cooks had pre-made for them. Cold sandwiches with fruit, juice, and a small dessert. Ro had to remember to act like she'd never been here before rather than that this was her second time. As they didn't have to use their lunch hour to actually cook or prepare food, as it was all pre-packaged items for their sack lunches, their lunch hour was going to be used for the competitions.

Yesterday Ro hadn't noticed any obnoxious bees on their way here, or while they had been at the falls, but apparently because of all of the food that they'd brought, or because of the warm weather that afternoon, they were about, and pestering everyone. It was hard to enjoy lunch if they had to be careful that there wasn't a bee sitting on their sandwich, or flying right into their face. Jennifer remedied this problem by placing a few soda cans, partially full of soda in a cluster away from the group. As no one was going to swat them away from the soda, the bees began to cluster around the cans, leaving everyone else alone. The only problem they had was that when it was time to leave, the bees were still swarming in and out of the soda cans. No one wanted to go near the cans to retrieve them, but they knew they couldn't just leave them there as it would be littering.

Fortunately, several people had brought bug repellant with them. They began spraying it from a distance at the cans until the bees began to leave the cans. When it seemed like it was safe enough to approach, Jennifer ran and jumped onto the can, squashing it flat. Of course it sprayed soda all over, but the important part was that if there were any bees lingering inside of the can, they were squished now.

"That wasn't very nice to the bees," Zee commented.

"What are you going to do about it?" Ro casually remarked. She was ready to follow the group down the trail and continue onward, but she found that if not dragged along, Zee was going to try and rescue the bees from the soda cans before Jennifer squashed anymore. He would be immune to their stings. "Come on, don't worry about it." Ro nagged him.

Because of the small delay Jennifer had already finished squishing the cans. She remarked to herself that she'd leave less soda in the cans next time. As the sticky soda spray on her legs might attract more bees along the trail she quickly went to splash it off with the water in the pond.

"I'm ready to go," she announced. She took her position at the head of the group again and led everyone back to their campsite. There she announced that she would be taking group and event sign ups.

Mandy went forward to sign up their group, then to assign each of them to the different events. She asked Zee if he would do the archery and target range. She actually didn't really ask for his opinion, but stated, "I'm going to sign you up for target shooting and archery as I think you'll be a natural at them, okay?" Heather and Carrie wanted to do the distance and relay swimming. Ro, Laura and Mandy would do the canoe races. Apparently the water portion of the competition was actually called a "water carnival."

They went to their tents to change into their swimming suits, except for Zee who wouldn't be needing to change for his activities.

"So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?" Zee asked curiously. Ro had taken him away from everyone else at the campsite, saying that she wanted a quick, private word with him.

Ro didn't know how she was going to say this. She paused for a moment then asked, "You think you'll be okay with the target shooting?"

"Is something wrong with it?" he asked. She usually only questioned him aside like this when there was something wrong with a situation.

"I just wanted to make sure that it's okay with you. It's not really like Mandy asked if you wanted to do this. She just sort of signed you up assuming you wanted to."

"Why wouldn't I?" he asked.

Ro knew from his curious expression that he was not being defensive about his wishes or opinions, but that he wanted to know what kind of situation would make him not want to do this activity. What made him most curious, though, was that Ro was being suggestive about him having doubts. Wouldn't doing this be considered "fun"? Why wouldn't he want to try it out then?

She wasn't sure how she could put this delicately without hurting his perspective of her complete confidence in him. "Well, I was just thinking that this might be your first experience shooting a gun since, well, you know…" She couldn't bring herself to mention the period of time when he had used guns to threaten people or to kill them at the government's whim. Her tone then became very defensive, and she began to speak quicker, "It's just that I wasn't sure if you were just going to be doing this because you felt," she paused to think of the right word, "pressured to not say anything because you thought that I would want you to do it…" She knew she hadn't been very articulate in this little spiel, but she hoped he'd be smart enough to figure it out himself.

He was a little taken aback at how much she really cared about his feelings in this matter; or at least enough to take him aside to talk to him in private about them. He usually thought about her feelings and areas of comfort in different situations, so it would seem natural that she should do the same about him, but it still surprised him. "I'd already taken such possibilities into consideration, but thank you for your concern. I am in control of myself. Shooting at clay pigeons isn't going to change my programming."

"Glad that's taken care of then," Ro sighed. She felt so much more relieved now that she knew he was doing this because he wanted to and not because everyone else wanted him to. "We can head back now," she said matter-of-factly.

The water carnival was going to be going on all day long; other wise there wouldn't be enough time to fit everyone into the races and competitions. The swimming relay races were going to be first, and the canoeing was going to be last, as was tradition. The rifle shooting contest was going to start immediately rather than later in the day as well. Over the years, it'd been discovered that it was best to have the target contest before 3:00 as any time after that the sun would be right in line with where the projected path of the clay pigeons flew through. This would be unfair to those who had to shoot at this time, as the sun would be right in their eyes.

Having swimming and target shooting going on at the same time was inconvenient to those who would have liked to participate in both events, and for those who wanted to watch participants in both events. But, because the contests had to be crammed into one day, sacrifices would have to be made, and people would have to prioritize which event was more important to them.

Mandy had declared that she was going to watch Carrie and Heather in the relay races. Ro knew that even before she'd found out that she'd have to chose which event she'd be watching that she was going to go and watch Zee. She had to be there, just in case something did go wrong.

They followed some other girls from their campsite to the target range as they hadn't visited it once the entire week during their free time to know where it was. The target range required a small bit of hiking to reach as it was purposely located away from the main area of camp to make sure that stray arrows or rifle shots didn't hurt anyone on a trail deep in the forest somewhere. It also was located more towards the boys' half of the camp than the girl's.

The range was broken up into three sections: one for archery, one long range for target shooting with rifles, and one for clay pigeon shooting with shotguns. On the long range, targets with paper bulls-eyes were set up already. Ro could hear the sounds of the rifles reloading, or pumping, then firing shots at the target. Apparently they weren't using plasma rifles as they were more dangerous and would completely blow the target away rather than leaving a small hole in the paper targets as a conventional bullet would. These counselors didn't trust their campers with plasma weapons. The ground on the clay pigeon range was littered with a mess of broken clay pigeon pieces from years past. The mound of clay pieces reminded Ro of the scales on a dragon: a dragon with clay pigeons for scales.

On the archery side of the range there were several hay stacks set up with large targets strapped on for those participating in the archery event. There were three girls and two boys lined up one fifty feet away with their bows drawn back. They aimed at the targets and released their arrows. Apparently to make things go faster and to end the competitions sooner they'd already started the early arrivers out on the events.

"So we're here. What now?" Ro asked.

"Maybe we should ask someone what to do?" Zee asked.

They looked at everyone around them, trying to identify who would be best to ask. Should they bug one of the counselors, who looked busy as it was, or should they try to find another camper to ask who looked well-informed?

"Look, there's Jerr…" Zee started to say before Ro clamped her hand over his mouth.

"Shhh!"

Zee immediately stopped talking. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly. Shouldn't' she be glad that he found someone whom they could ask what to do next?

"There are some girls from Redwood here, and there are counselors. What are they going to think if we just walk up to a random group of guys and act all buddy buddy with them?"

"They'll think that we know them," he said quizzically. What was wrong with that?

"Precisely."

"Don't we, though?"

"Yes-- I mean No! We're not supposed to know them! We have to act like we don't know them."

"Why?"

"Where did we meet them?"

"At their cabin."

"Right. We weren't supposed to be over at their cabin."

It made sense now. It was against camp rules for campers form either camp to be at the other's campsite, or in their tents or cabins. And while they could make up a story such as they'd met on the trials somewhere, it would be rather far-fetched as none of the trails did meet up, except for at certain places where they shouldn't be, or where they're would have been counselor supervision to begin with.

"We should go re-introduce ourselves then," Zee suggested.

"Just what I was thinking."

They walked over to Jerry and his group of friends. "Hi, my name's Zee. What's yours?" Zee asked politely, extending his hand to shake with Jerry.

Ro sighed. "Not what I meant," she said, shaking her head.

Jerry just laughed, "I'm Jerry," he played along. It had also occurred to him that they weren't supposed to know each other, which is why they hadn't said anything when they'd seen Ro and Zee coming up the trail with the other girls from their campsite.

"You guys here for the contests?" Ro asked casually.

"Yeah, we figure with all of our gaming skills this should be right up our alley. We're going to take our best shots at it," he tried to play on a lame pun. "

"Ha… Ha…" Ro faked a laugh. She wanted to ask where Bucky was, but that would be admitting that she knew him. Instead she asked, "Any of your other friends coming, or doing any of the events?"

Jerry must have read her thoughts like an open book, "Bucky is going to be doing the canoe races. He's over there watching the swimming contests right now."

"So, how do we get started here?" Ro asked.

"Right now they're just checking to see that everyone's certified."

Oh, great. Zee wasn't certified as they hadn't been up here all week. "And what if you aren't?" Ro asked.

"Then you just get to watch."

"So they can't just quickly certify you?" Ro asked.

"There's a whole gun safety procedure, and a lot of other bull crap that they have to go through. It'd take too much time to go through it. Why do you ask?"

"Ro was just debating if she wanted to try it out or not," Zee spoke up. "I guess she'll just have to watch me then."

Was he crazy? He wasn't certified either. She wondered what they'd think afterwards if they'd found out that they'd given an as x-killer robot without even a "gun safety bead" have a loaded rifle. Then again, his past history should make him qualified to use such a weapon…

"Well, I won't be participating so you can have my bead," one of Jerry's friends offered Ro. "I'm just here to watch Jerry. This contest is going to prove if he really is as good of a shot as he says he is, or if he's really just using a hack to get all of his kills like I think he is." He began to tug on the brown colored bead on his lanyard, to remove it to give it to Ro.

"Yeah right! You comparing the spatial field of a video game with real life is ridiculous!" Jerry retorted.

"I actually think I'd prefer to just watch," Ro declined, even though it would be handy to have the bead so Zee could participate. She did wonder, though, why Mandy hadn't mentioned that they'd need to be certified to participate in this event when signing Zee up. Jerry's friend stopped trying to pull off his bead.

A counselor announced over the chatter that anyone who had not been checked off for certification to please step forward. "I guess that includes me," Zee commented. He headed towards the counselor. In his hand he held a holographic necklace, complete with one "gun safety", brown bead.

"Name?" the counselor asked.

"Zee."

"Are you certified?" the counselor asked.

Zee held out his hand with the necklace and the bead on it. The counselor eyed the bead then made a mark on his clipboard. However, the counselor knew that having a brown bead wasn't proof enough that he should be giving a lethal firearm to the camper with the bead. An unexpected pop quiz of firearm safety would prove sufficient enough to determine this camper's eligibility.

It was fortunate for Zee that there was a posted poster of gun safety rules located several feet behind the counselor. It was too far for a normal person to read, so it hadn't occurred to the counselors to take it down so that someone didn't' try to cheat. Not to mention, it was probably too much of a hassle to remove it then repost it, or to find something to cover it up with.

Zee passed the verbal pop quiz. The fact that he had previous experience using guns, and that he could read through the warnings on the sing for the correct answer (without making it seem like he was unsure or stalling for time to decide on the right answer) undoubtedly helped. He was instructed that he would be in group seven and that he could just wait with the spectators until it was his turn.

"I'm in group seven," he announced when he returned to the group.

"Me too," Jerry commented. Ro knew she should feel sorry for Jerry as Zee was going to kick his butt in this competition, but she really only had the capacity at the moment to feel smug. Feeling proud and sympathetic was too strenuous at the moment. She'd just be sure to not be a boasting winner when it did happen. "If you haven't already, you should go get your group number for the other events. That way you don't have to just be waiting all day long."

It turned out that Zee was in group five for archery, and twenty fourth in line for clay pigeon shooting.

There were a few benches set up for spectators, far off on both sides of range. They could either have a good view of the clay pigeon shooting or the archery, but not the long range shooting in the middle. As one of Jerry's friends, Greg, was in the third group for target shooting Ro and Zee found them on the clay pigeon side, trying to watch Greg in the middle of the range. They'd only have a minute to watch and then Zee would have to hurry over to the archery range.

Ro sat down, and watched Greg. "Rifle shooting has got to be the most boring sport ever," she commented.

"I thought you said golf was," Zee commented.

"Nah, this is more boring. They just stand there, and you hear a sound, then they reload, then they just stand there again, then they shoot… I've officially decided that rifle shooting is the most boring sport, to watch at least."

"What about fishing?" Jerry suggested. "They just sit there, and sit there, and sit there waiting for a bite." Ro considered his suggestion, and changed her mind to agree with him. When Greg went up to check how well he'd done Zee and Ro got up to head over to archery.

He'd already had to prove his certification when he found out what group they were in so Ro took a seat with the other people who were watching while Zee went to get a bow and some arrows. He was right on the end, closest to the benches, in the line up. They would get one practice shot, then the seven following that would count towards their final score. Ten points for hitting the bulls-eye, then the point value decreased by one for each ring away form the center.

Zee began to examine the distance from where he was standing to the target and the height of the target from the ground. He then began to calculate the difference between the height of his eyesight and the height the arrow would start at as it rested in the ready position on his bow at about shoulder level. He'd have to aim a little bit down. The unknown variable in his trigonomic equation was how much force he'd get by how far he pulled back the bow. He knew how much force he needed, but it wasn't as if the bow had a gauge on it that told him. That was what the practice shot would be for.

As soon as the other girls started shooting their practice shots he released his arrow. It embedded half of itself into the target, just above the bulls-eye. He had a little too much force, but how had he missed the bulls-eye? Simple, it was the arrow's fault, never his. If they were using professional-quality arrows it would have been dead on. His only other question was whether he wanted to try lowering his aim, or if he should just hope that the rest of his arrows would be direct hits. Then again, he shouldn't worry too much. Everyone else was doing far worse in comparison. Only two others out of his group actually landed somewhere on the target. The rest hit the corner of the hay stack or completely missed.

His second try, which actually counted for points, was a direct hit. He turned toward the crowd and saw Ro smiling. It wasn't an aggressive sport so no one seemed to be cheering loudly or calling out names. They were just casually watching. They were just there to show support by their mere presence.

His third arrow went into the 8 point range. "That's messed up," Ro commented. She knew that all of Zee's arrows should have been in the bulls-eye. She knew that the other people who were hitting the mark close to the bulls-eye were really just lucking out. No way could they have that kind of natural talent. Zee still ended up winning, however with 67points, the highest score so far. But that didn't mean that someone couldn't out score him. They were in an early group for the day. However, anyone who wanted to beat Zee would have to hit the bulls-eye five out of five times, and the 9 ring, for the other two shots. No on in Zee's group even came close. The next highest score was a 44.

Zee was awarded a certificate with his score on it, just in case the score book got lost or someone tried to cheat by altering the scores later. They returned to the pigeon side of the range to wait until it was Zee's and Jerry's turn to shoot.

The turns at the rifle target shooting went fairly quickly. "Remember, it's not good to be Davy Crockett at this event," Ro reminded him.

"Davy Crockett?" Zee asked.

"This event should be more accurate than the archery one. Even if you can, it's not good to shoot through the same bulls-eye hole. They'll think you missed the target completely, rather than shooting your shots through the same hole as the first one."

"Right."

The counselor informed the group that the gun sights had all been zeroed in this morning for this particular distance so there was no need for them to be done again now. However, after Zee made his first shot, his vision zoomed in on the target. "Zeroed in." Yeah right. The sights had only been calibrated enough so that the bullets hit some part of the paper target. He adjusted his scope a little, then made another shot. Bulls-eye! He was really good at this.

When he'd used up his ten shots he considered leaving the scope as it was, but that would mean that whoever was after him would have it made for them. Or should he change it back to the way that he'd found it? Everyone else before him had had to use the gun the way it was. Or had they just not bothered to fine tune the scope? Did they know how much it was off while they were shooting it or after they saw their target up close? Did they bother to alter the sight or just aim a little more to the right or left? However, as he realized that winning was the game here, he adjusted the scope back to where he'd found it. He was too kind-hearted to completely disorient the scope for the next user. He collected his target then went back to Ro.

When he brought back the paper target to show Ro there was a distinctive spaced out pattern of ten bullet holes, all directly inside of the bulls-eye, except for one that was off to the side. The paper target had been initialed and stamped by the counselor in charge to make sure someone didn't grab a blank one and try to punch holes in it, trying to pass them off as shots. "You're going to give yourself away if you keep this up," she said, elbowing him gently. She wouldn't tell him to stop though. She was enjoying how all of the boys were completely shocked that they'd been beat by a girl.

They were only on the fourteenth person for the clay pigeon contest. Only one person could shoot at a time, since they only had one skeet launcher. When the 23rd person was about to start Zee was called over. "Good luck," Ro said, just as he was getting up to leave.

"As if she needs it…" Jerry commented.

"Your practice shots are whatever she misses," the counselor told Zee. "You can only shoot after she's made her shot."

Zee had been watching the people before him while he waited for his turn, so he was now familiar with how the system worked. He waited off to the right of the person whose turn it was. The skeet was launched, the girl traced the skeet with her gun then fired at it. She missed, and within a second Zee shot the skeet out of the sky. She shouldn't have traced it, but should have led it. Or she should have traced it, then quickly jumped ahead before shooting it.

There was only enough time for ten pigeons a person. Already, it was taking a long time as it was. During free time, each person usually got between twenty and forty pigeons. The girl missed again, and again Zee demolished the pigeon. There was a very strict range that someone could shoot the pigeon in, mainly because of the direction the gun would be facing in to shoot it. If they shot it early in its trajectory they'd be shooting to the left, over the archery and target range. Too late in its path and they'd be shooting to the right, on the same side as the spectator benches. But, because the benches were located behind the range, there was very little, if any, danger to the spectators. Still, no one wanted to send a note home to someone's parents saying that their child had a small bullet wound.

She got a hit on the third and fourth pigeons, but missed the fifth. She got it again on the sixth, seventh, and eight, but missed the last two. It was an average score when compared with the twenty two people before her. Even though Zee shot down all of the pigeons she missed, none of his hits counted toward his score.

He held us shotgun up. Ro held her breath as she watched. "Please, don't let anything happen," she prayed. But why was she so worried? She didn't actually believe this exercise would make him a killer again.

The first skeet flew into the air, then fell to the ground in pieces after having been shot. The same pattern followed for the rest of the clay pigeons.

"Ten out of ten, not bad," Ro commented. "I think you've impressed enough people for now at least."

They started walking back down the trail towards the dock. They'd have to see if it was on the other side of the lake once they got there. "Did you enjoy yourself?" Ro asked.

Was she really asking him if he liked shooting a gun at targets? How did she expect him to reply to such a question? He expected that she'd like to have him tell her that it was fun and enjoyable, but what would that sound like coming from an ex-killer robot? How would it sound if he said, "Yes, I like shooting guns." Or would she feel bad for dragging him into this if he said that he didn't like it at all? "I liked scoring for our camp and campsite," he safely answered.

"That's nice."

The races were still going on when they reached the docks. The swimming races were going to be held on the girl's half of the lake as the range was located closer to the boy's half of the camp. The canoe races would cover both halves of the lake. They didn't have swimming on both halves of the lake as it would be hard to make two equal, distance measurements on each side of the lake.

Swimming through water was hard work and took a long time, which was why they still hadn't finished. Also, having a 12 minute relay to see how many laps a person could swim in that time, couldn't be any shorter in time than twelve minutes. They were near the end of the races though, which meant that they would then be setting up for the canoe races. The majority of the people at the range would just be coming back into the camps when they started the races. There would be a few, who had signed up for clay pigeon shooting, that would be able to participate in one of the late canoe groups, but not in one of the earlier groups.

Mandy spotted Ro and Zee. "Hey! How'd you do?" she asked Zee.

"Zee's awesome," Ro answered for him.

"I got a 67/70 on archery, and a 10/10 on the skeet shooting."

"That's amazing!"

"Not really. I just analyzed the distance from my position to the target, and calculated the height difference…"

Ro cut him off, "There were some other people there too who were really good," she lied. No one there had been as good as Zee, but there were people there who were "good."

"You ready for the canoe races, because we're in the first group," Mandy asked Ro.

She was wearing her bathing suit underneath so she didn't have to worry about finding a place to change. She just needed to take off her clothes and she would be ready. "Can you watch my stuff again?" she asked Zee.

"Sure."

"I'm ready now."

Laura was waiting by a canoe for them. Ro was handed a life preserver and a paddle. "This race is just for speed, so don't purposely jump out of the canoe or anything like that," she laughed playfully.

Ro was glad Mandy was acting so calm about the whole situation as she had a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. She was feeling much anxiety about this competition. She just hoped she could channel some of that energy into the race. One thing that really relieved her was that Redwood wasn't in this race, nor was Bucky. She was just competing against nameless people, so it wouldn't mean too much if they did lose.

Ro was the middle person in their canoe. She would be paddling on the right with Mandy paddling on the left, and Laura in the back alternating sides to counter whichever direction the canoe started to drift in.

"We're just racing around the buoy on the other side of the lake then back here again. We're not going to try and paddle around it like everyone else will. We're just going to come in close to it, then I'll back paddle on the left side, while you two forward paddle on the right. We'll make a tight turn around it while still retaining most of our speed. I'll go into more details as we come closer. Now, battle cry, ladies."

Battle cry? Mandy lifted her oar high into the air, as well a Laura, and shouted really loudly. Ro felt silly, but followed suit. Then, Mandy brought her paddle down on the surface of the water with a loud smack sound. Laura followed, then Ro. Their paddles splashed water all around, but not on anyone in particular.

"Just start paddling when you hear the whistle," Mandy instructed Ro and Laura behind her. Ro couldn't wait for the whistle to blow. She had so much energy wound up insider her. It would be a relief to get some of it out and to get this over with.

The whistle blew and she immediately began to paddle as past as possible. She didn't know that this would be highly inefficient if Laura wasn't watching her from behind to match her strokes with hers, and if Mandy wasn't looking behind her to match with Laura. They eventually settled into a smooth pattern with long, strokes. As could be expected in a race, everyone else was paddling as fast as possible, and was doing a good job at keeping up. Ro still had plenty of energy left as they came up to the buoy. The canoes around them began to swing out to make a circle around the buoy. "Forward paddle on the right side!" Mandy called out.

Laura and Ro quickly began to paddle on the right side of the canoe.The back of their canoe began to swing out as they also began to turn around the buoy. They'd made it around the buoy! The rest of the canoes who were making a wide circle were now behind them. Ro was feeling a little tired, but the fact that they now were ahead of the other canoes gave Ro more strength. "Resume paddling forward!" Ro continued to paddle on the right with Mandy on the left. They were gaining speed, and they were ahead of everyone else! The boys and girls who had still kept their momentum by making a wide circle around the buoy came in about twenty seconds behind them. Their time score was 4m 22s. Even after they finished though, there were some canoes still trying to make it around the buoy. They were having problems coordinating paddling on either side so that the canoe didn't just spin in a circle, but actually moved forward as well.

"How well did we do?" Ro asked Mandy, as they turned in their life preservers and paddles to the next group.

"Not bad. I've done faster other years."

"Sorry," Ro apologized. She was sure it was because she was on their team. She had paddled as fast as she could, but she guessed it wasn't' enough.

"It's not your fault. There's a little cross breeze today. It's really annoying because it's doesn't help. If it was head wind, it would at least be behind you on the trip back. Cross winds just blow and make it harder to stay forward."

They had several minutes to hang out and watch the other racers before the second half of the canoe races would start. The second half was the two person races and was the last even of the day. By then, everyone would be gathered on the docks and shore to watch. The water carnival was definitely more lively in spirit than the range had been, and far more competitive.

In the free moment Ro went back to the campsite to get a towel for after the race she'd have to do with Mandy. If she had to jump in the water as part of the drill, she would want a towel when she got out. She hadn't brought one with earlier as she hadn't' really wanted to carry it around with her.

"You did very well!" Zee said encouragingly.

"You think so?" She didn't think she did well, but average. Mandy had been the one who had made it possible. She'd just been paddling. She'd really been trying hard to meet Mandy's expectations, but in doing so she might have spent herself on the first race. She hoped she'd be able to save up enough energy by the time she had to participate in the second race.

They returned to the docks to watch the rest of the groups. Redwood was extremely devilish when the raced. They were splashing water into everyone's face with their paddles, intentionally. Sure some water splashing was expected, but it seemed like they were trying to load up their opponents canoes with enough water to make them heavier and sluggish. When they went around the buoy they were purposely crashing into everyone else's canoe to send them off course. Bucky and his friends were in a different race. They did really well—most likely because they copied Mandy's technique! He beat their time with a score of 3m 58s. They must have been paddling faster in general than they had.

"I think they should add on twenty seconds for having copied your technique!" Ro scoffed.

"They still would have beat us with that score, though."

"It'd make me feel better at least, to only have them beat us by four seconds rather than by twenty four."

"It's a fairly common technique… I think if they did it, they deserve their time."

Ro decided not to argue the matter any further. It wasn't her technique they'd stolen so if Mandy wasn't going to make a big deal about it, she shouldn't. There were nine groups of six canoes that went in total. Out of all 36 scores, Bucky's group got first. Another group of boys, got second for just being speedy. Mandy's team got third. Redwood got sixth place, which Ro felt was highly undeserving, as while they hadn't done any main apparent cheating, she still felt that they must have some how cheated to get that score.

The scores of all of the canoes were analyzed and everyone was grouped in with other canoes that had about the same speed time. Oh no. Redwood would be competing in their group for the last race, as well as Bucky. Ro could see the counselors logic in grouping the canoes, but why did they have to go against Redwood and Bucky? "It'll be better this way. We won't have to worry about someone who doesn't know what they're doing getting in the way or something like that," Mandy said optimistically.

"Yeah, I guess…" She still thought they were going to regret this.

They would be in the last group of the day. How much more suspenseful could it get? They had the best groups competing against each other for the last, most important event, at the end of the day?

"You nervous?" Zee asked Ro.

"So it shows?" she asked sarcastically. Of course she was nervous!

"Anyway I can help?"

"Not unless you can make all the other canoe's sink out in the middle of the lake," she said gloomily. Zee looked at her hopefully. Her wish, was his command…

She must have read his eagerness to please her, as she thought better of her question, "No, Zee. I don't want you to drill holes in the bottoms of their canoes."

"What about…"

"No, not that either," she cut him off before he could finish. "It'll be alright. I'm just stressing, that's all. It's just a simple race. You don't need to get involved."

If she really didn't want his help then he wished she wouldn't say anything. It was just too tempting to fantasize about slipping away from the group, then jumping in the water. He could hold his breath infinitely… he'd just wait out in the middle of the lake, under the surface, watching for the large oval shapes to pass overhead. It would be simple enough to sabotage them for underneath, like the lockness monster or something. But Ro had said not to drill holes in the bottom. He came up with a better plan. Why not just hang on for the ride? He could easily weigh down one of the canoes to make them go slower. But that wouldn't stop them all. What if he secretly pushed Ro's canoe with his own propulsion? No, too risky. He might easily be seen under the water by someone else in another canoe. He liked his plan of pushing Ro's canoe for her from underneath, but he would respect her wish to not get involved.

The second half of the canoe races began. Ro watched for successful techniques, and ones that didn't work so well. She really couldn't piece out much though. So far, Mandy had shown her the best techniques for this event. One thing that Ro did pick up on, was that whistle commands used along with the verbal commands. One whistle to change places, two to jump out of the canoe. The canoes had to go from one end of the lake, around a buoy there, then back again. The race was longer than the one she'd been in with Laura and Mandy.

As these were the canoe groups that hadn't done well on a simple race they weren't doing well on these harder challenges. Some of the canoes did improve, as different people were rotated into the canoe, but they still weren't very skilled. The eighth group of canoes was really good. Eight minutes flat.

The nervous feeling was back in Ro's stomach, so she knew that she would at least have plenty of energy for the first half of the race. She was handed another paddle and life preserver.

"The worst thing about being last for this event, is that the life preservers are all wet and cold," Mandy shivered as she put hers on. She had a big smile on her face. Ro wished she could be feeling less anxiety over this, so that she could enjoy it more. "Need me to tighten yours?" she asked Ro.

"Sure." The cold preserver hugged Ro even tighter as Mandy tightened the straps. It didn't matter that warmed up from being against Ro's skin. She was just going to be jumping in and out of the water getting it wet over and over again.

"When they give a command, or blow a whistle, don't hesitate. Do it immediately," Mandy gave her one last tip of advice. "That way we'll always be synchronized with each other."

They climbed into their canoe, Mandy in front and Ro in back. Ro glanced longingly at Zee. He was waiving to her, mimicking what Laura, Heather and Carrie were doing. When they cheered, he cheered a second later. He made her laugh, and that eased the tension a little. "It's just a race," Ro told herself. They paddled out to the starting point.

"One whistle, means change places. Two whistles means you have to jump out then climb back in to your same positions. You're to take your canoe down to that buoy, turn around, then come back. First canoe over the finish line wins for this group. The quickest time wins for the day."

"See you at the finish line!" Bucky taunted, looking over at Ro.

The tension was back again.

The whistle to start was blown. "YEAH!" Mandy laughed, and they started off. They'd only been going for a few seconds when two whistles were blown. "No time to fret about how cold it will be," Ro thought as she jumped into the water at the same time as Mandy. They both climbed up into the canoe at the same time, and started paddling again. They were a little behind from some of the other canoes in the group. They were ahead of Ro and Mandy because they hadn't jumped out immediately but had paddled a few strokes before dropping their paddles to jump out. Although they had been fast in the races, the fifth group was slow in getting back into their canoe. The first group's canoe veered off to the left a little when they jumped out. Apparently the person on the right had pushed too hard when they jumped out. They began to paddle past the swimmers, who were scrambling to get back into their canoes. They were paddling for a while when a whistle was blown. The counselor didn't have them jump out again, as there was still one canoe still trying to get back in. Ro dropped to the floor of the canoe and scooted up to the front while Mandy took large steps over her. Their canoe slowed down for a little, and started to turn to the left a little, but after they'd switched they quickly picked up speed again and straightened out their canoe. The buoy was up ahead. They'd have to start to do their maneuver around it, or they'd have to swing out to go around it. Just their luck, a whistle was blown. Again Ro dropped to the floor of the canoe, and scooted backwards. Unlike other canoes, theirs continued in a straight line path when they switched places. They were getting ahead of the other canoes! "PADDLE FASTER!" Mandy shouted.

Wasn't she paddling as fast as she could as it was already? Apparently not, as when Mandy said this Ro quickened her pace. She was beginning to feel her arms aching. "Paddle on the right!" Mandy shouted, while thrusting her own paddle into the water on the left side of the canoe and back paddling. The back end of the canoe made a wide swing behind them, while the front end began to circle around the buoy. What a quick turn around!

A double whistle was blown. Ro was sure she'd look like a drenched rat by the time they crossed the finish line. As she climbed back into the canoe she saw Redwood circling the buoy behind them. They didn't stop to jump into the water at the sound of the two whistles. Ro figured they'd do it when they got safely around, but they didn't. "They're cheating! They didn't follow the whistle!"

"I know, the counselors have a hard time seeing as far as the buoy."

"Then why didn't we cheat as well?" Ro wondered.

Redwood was quickly catching up with them as they didn't drop in the water. Bucky was right behind Redwood. In a second Redwood was right along side them! Ro paddled faster to get ahead of them, but it was hard as Alexandria was purposely hitting her paddle wither own. Ro was actually grateful when Bucky came up along side them and ran into the side of Redwood's canoe. It was a little inconvenient to them as well, though, as Redwood's canoe bumped into their own. If Ro wasn't too busy trying to concentrate on paddling, and listening for whistles she would have heard the eager cries of the crowd watching in suspense. "Heck with this!" Ro shouted as their canoe got bumped for a second time. She stood up in her canoe and extended her foot out to Cynthia's canoe. She quickly shoved it with her foot. True their canoe moved off to the side as well, but at least they were free to put their paddles in the water again. They were only paddling for a short while when two whistles were blown. Ro was going to have to do something evil to the counselor who was blowing the whistles. None of the other canoes had had to jump in the water this many times.

She ,made it back into the canoe fine, but Mandy was having a problem. When Cynthia had jumped out, she tried to delay Mandy from climbing back in by holding onto her preserver. Ro grabbed her paddle and used it to separate Cynthia from Mandy. "Thanks," Mandy said, as Ro pulled her in.

"No problem."

They quickly began to paddle again, trying to get away from the group of canoes. This was difficult because as the second person in Bucky's canoe was climbing back in Cynthia had tried to hold onto his leg. Bucky's canoe had then started turning sideways, blocking Redwood's canoe, and being partially in the way of their canoe. Despite all of their delays, however, they were still in the lead of the other three canoes, and their time was still under everyone else's canoe at this point. They quickly began to paddle forward when a whistle was blown. Ro quickly traded places with Mandy. As soon as she'd picked up her paddle, another whistle was blown. She as sure now that the counselor was just doing this for their own pleasure and enjoyment, and not to make this race fair. With all of these drills they had to go to, how could they possibly beat the other canoe groups times?

They were on the straight stretch back to the finish line. Ro felt more strength come to her as the end was so close. Apparently so did Cynthia and Alexandria. They were right on their side again! Couldn't they ever just stay behind? A whistle was blown. As Mandy was walking over Ro, Cynthia reached out to grab her leg and make her fall.

Mandy must have been a gymnast in another life as she managed to fall, but still remain in the canoe, and not rock it. She fell forward, but caught herself.

"You okay?" Ro asked.

"Yeah. We need to keep going!"

Mandy took her place in the back and they began paddling. Ro began paddling as well. Cynthia and Alexandria were ahead of them. They were going to win. No wait! They were still switching places from the whistle blow! Ro couldn't have witnessed a more wonderful event. Somehow in their rush, both managed to fall out of the canoe, tipping it over as well. Ro's and Mandy's eyes lit up, and they paddled faster and faster. Ro quickly glanced to the shore to still see if Zee was there. He was. This was pure luck rather than helpful synthoid interception. The finish line was only a dozen feet away and Bucky was two canoe's lengths behind them! They were going to win!

Then… two whistles blew. "Run and jump out of the end of the canoe!" Mandy shouted.

It wasn't what they'd practiced, but Ro knew to trust whatever it was that Mandy said. Mandy turned around and jumped out the backside of the canoe. Ro stood up and took several steps, then shoved off the canoe as she jumped out. Their canoe went sailing forward, right under the rope finish line that had been strung across over the lake. "TIME!" the counselor with the stop watch at the finish line shouted. Their canoe was certainly the first to cross the finish line, but did it count since they weren't in it? An uproar of shouts and cheers came from the girl's camp, except from the girls in the Redwood campsite. All the girls from Laurel had their swords in the air and were waving them wildly, screaming battle cries of success. Apparently, it did still count. They'd won!

Just so that they could say that they actually finished the race, they swam the rest of the way to the finish line. They were still ahead of Bucky's canoe which had just resumed paddling forward. Cynthia had tried to hang onto the back of Bucky's canoe, but he was slapping her knuckles with his paddle and elbowing her off. He was making a rather fun joke of it as well. Second place was secure for him. He had time to enjoy prying her off of he back of his canoe.

Zee ran to Ro and Mandy, Ro's towel in his hands. He presented it to her. Ro wiped her face off with it, then wrapped it around her shoulders. In her excitement she hadn't forgotten how cold she still was. Their time was 7m 08s. Wow. Ro didn't think that they'd beaten the eighth group's best time by that much, but apparently they had. The best thing about this whole race, though, was not that they'd beat Redwood and Bucky, or that they'd beaten all of the other Redwood canoes, and all of the other boy's canoes, but that it was over and she could relax.

It was a few minutes before Redwood brought their canoe over the finish line. There was a ton of water in the bottom of their canoe. "Your time is 13 minutes, and twenty-nine seconds, plus a twenty second penalty…" the counselor added onto their time.

"Penalty? FOR WHAT?" Cynthia demanded.

"You missed one of the double whistle drills just at the buoy… let's see… your time is thirteen minutes, forty-nine seconds."

Ro and Mandy weren't carried back to their campsite on the shoulders of their peers, but they did have everyone's admiration. They didn't bother to shower before dinner as they'd still end up wanting one before they went to bed, especially if they'd be having to get dirty from clean up after dinner.

Dinner was far too delicious to waste by throwing it around in a food fight. Laurel lucked out. It was hamburgers, French fries, and shakes, and was very easy to clean up after. Redwood still managed to make an absolute mess out of it at their table, though. After wards they hurried back to their campsite to retrieve their swords for their skit. How was it that Redwood got the first draw of the cards? Their skit would be last but with luck, everyone would be too wowed by their skit to pay too much attention.

The director made several announcements about how she was glad no one got hurt, but how everyone did their best and everyone had fun. Announcements of the final winners were going to be made after the skits, though most everyone had asked around to hear what everyone else's score was. They still didn't know what several of the boy's scores were. The director also announced, that this year they would be having a skit exchange with the boy's camp. Whoever had the best skit from the girls camp would be invited to go perform for the boys. While the boys didn't have a skit competition, they still would be electing an act to come and perform for the girls. Ro wondered what Bucky's skit was, and if his would be chosen. They would be performing before the announcements for the girl's skits were made, as it would give the counselors time to vote, and it was the only time the boys could come over.

Finally, it was time for their skit. Some girls had donated their tarps and twine to make a small back stage area. It was the best they could do in this environment. Ro was just glad that they'd get to perform their skit while there was still some amount of light out. It would really stink to have put in this much effort and have it be too dark for people to notice the fine details. The skit opened with two girls walking out onto the "stage" area. They weren't actually in the Laurel campsite, but were just supplied with some opening dialogue lines. Once they'd they'd finished their lines they would be free to sit down and enjoy the rest of the performance. Their names were Katy and Vanessa.

Katy stated the opening dialogue for their skit, "Hey I just bought this really cool new super TV;it's an interactive TV."

"So what's on?"

"I dunno, let me check." She pretended to turn on a TV, by mimicking the motions with a pretend remote control. "It's one of those samurai--sword fighting type shows."

"Sure, why not," Vanessa said, then sat down with Katy to watch the program.

Since Zee had done most of the choreography, it was decided that he should go first. Ro was his partner, so they stepped out from behind the tarp and took their places. Zee and Ro both had their wooden swords in had, and were standing in their fighting stance ready to begin. Zee started their act, with a really fast sword combo. Even though they'd practiced it several times, Ro still had no clue what it exactly Zee was doing, or how he did it so quickly, She only saw his sword whipping around her, and knew what she was supposed to do afterwards. She dropped her sword and fell over, "dead."

"Hold on! Rewind it! I missed it!" Vanessa shouted to Katy.

"I'll use the slow motion button…" she offered. She shouted the magic words, "STOP! REWIND! SLOW MOTION!"

Ro got up from where she was lying, almost in the same manner that she'd fallen down in. She picked up her sword again and reversed her movements until she was in her starting stance again.

"PLAY!"

She then began to reenact the skit with Zee, only it was much longer played out than the first time. Zee had taught Ro the choreography from a really popular, recently released vid movie that had had some sword fighting in it. Everyone instantly recognized the classic moves. Needless to say, they were impressed. They began to travel around the stage area until they eventually wound up back where they started, and Zee finished Ro off, and she fell over dead again.

The audience clapped, but that wasn't the end of the skit. Zee and Ro left the stage, and were replaced by Mandy, Heather, Carrie, and Laura. They began to fence each other, almost as impressively as Zee and Ro's fighting. Mandy, ended up as the loser, out of the four. It would have been impressive by itself, but in keeping with the humorous side of their skit, Vanessa played out her cue again. She repeated the magic words. "STOP. REWIND. SLOW MOTION. PLAY!"

The girls resumed their position. Each held her sword up as she had in the beginning of the, skit, and they began to reenact the last part of their duel. However, at the part where Mandy was about to be finished off, Laura stopped the momentum of the fight. She lowered her sword, then looked at Carrie and Heather behind her. She made a very simple hand gesture to them that read, "Take her out." Laura then stepped back away from the action, to let her minions do the dirty work. Heather and Carrie grabbed Mandy's shoulder, with her back towards the audience, then pretended to punch her in the stomach, as if they were the mafia, taking someone out. Mandy was trying not to laugh, but make sounds like she was actually being beat up. Heather and Carrie had a hard time keeping a straight face as well. They were supposed to be the "tough guys" but they were having too much fun to put on grim expressions. Mandy fell to the ground, pretending to be dead, and Laura picked up he sword again, and pointed it at her, as she had at the end of the first skit when she'd finished her off.

Alyssa and Nancy were up next. They stepped out from behind the tarp and took their places. They had their swords in hand and were ready to act. They stood in the ready position to begin dueling, then winked at each other, and fell down dead.

"STOP. REWIND. SLOW MOTION! PLAY!"

They got up from where they were lying and reversed their movements until they were at the starting position again.

They began to duel again, but this time they were doing the choreography that they'd practiced. Their swords clashed against each other, in a very fierce battle. Everyone was awed and wowed.

"It was still too fast!" Vanessa complained. "Can you slow it down even more?"

"STOP! REWIND! SUPER SLOW MOTION! PLAY!"

They repeated the choreography, but with added humorous jokes in it this time around. At one point Nancy stopped to bend down to tie her shoe, and missed being beheaded while Alyssa mad a swipe over her head. At another time, Alyssa simply side stepped to avoid Nancy's attack.

For the fourth skit, the girls began throwing punches and kicks, as well as trying to slap their opponent on the back of the head or somewhere during the slow motion part of their skit. Another group had a pizza delivered (it was actually just the left over box from when they'd ordered it earlier) that they sat down to enjoy in the middle of their fight. Lily and Bethany were a riot. As a part of the skit, Lily was just going to simply hold her sword with one hand while Bethany did all of the sword work. Lily liked it this way as she didn't think she could remember all of the steps for a full length fight, and she still got to be the victor. Bethany's job was to set up elaborate combos, only to have Lily simply raise her sword to block her. This went on for minutes, and Lily kept on looking at her watch, bored, while Bethany was working up a sweat. The last part of the joke was that Lily just handed her sword to someone in the audience to take over for her, while she went off to get ready for bed. The audience member just did the same thing Lily was doing. Their part of the skit ended when the next group came in. As it turned out, Bethany kicked all of the next group's butts.

While everyone had laughed a ton during their skit, Ro didn't necessarily think that they'd win. It would be nice if they did, because then, if they were invited to perform at Bucky's camp, they could get a quick word in with Bucky. But while winning would be nice, the fact that they'd had a lot of fun doing this skit was what counted.

Redwood's skit, stunk. It was completely vain, and self-centered. They were just pretending out a skit where there was an elite group of people who was better than everyone else and it was their job to get rid of them. Jennifer swore that they'd copied their idea of having a fighting-type skit. The fact that they'd carried their swords around everywhere must have let them know that they'd need to beef up their skit as well. If they were going to do a story for their skit, couldn't they have picked one with a better plot? Or at least one with a climax.

"The best part about that skit," Ro commented. "was the end."

The director got up to thank everyone for their skits and announced that they would be tallying up the points, and announcing it after the boys performed their skits. Ro hadn't even heard them come up, but they were standing in a group off to the side with two of their counselors. The boys in the group weren't anyone Ro or Zee knew.

"The stage is yours," the director said to the boys. Their counselors sat down, smiling. They'd seen the skit before and knew what to expect. They were already laughing to themselves, as they thought about how funny the skit had been the first time they'd seen it.

One of the boys stepped forward. "Hi, y'all. I'd like to be known by my rapper name. P. Zachy." His name was actually just Zach.

"Are these boys going to do a hip-hop number with break dancing then?" Mandy asked Ro. What made her think she'd know either?

There were eight boys behind Zach staggered themselves in windows. "LIGHTS!" Zach called out.

Several of the girls in the audience took this as a cue to turn on their flashlights and shine it, not in his face, but on the ground around the boys.

Zach then added, "By the way, I'm going to be throwing in some of my own, uh, interpretive dance moves in this number ."

Just from the first line alone, everyone in the audience knew what song he was singing. It was the love song from a very popular movie. Not an Adam Heat guy-type action movie, but a girly chick flick. "Not this song!" Ro groaned. Nearly every other girl her age was in love with this most dull, song. They all requested it on the radio. It was everywhere; there was no hiding from it. It drove Ro crazy, as it was an awful song to listen to, and wasn't even a decent song to dance to! The beat of the song was too slow even for slow dancing! The song just droned on and on… There were two groups of people, those who loved the song, and those who hated. There was no such thing as "middle ground."

Zach's voice suddenly changed, and it became very screechy. It sounded like someone was stringing a cat up by its tail then beating it like piñata. Or maybe it was a constipated weenier dog being stretched to four times it's regular length. Then it became very low and hoarse. He was making a mockery of the song! He then began to do overly exaggerated arm movements and spins with some awfully choreographed interpretive dance moves, that Zee identified as "churlish." Ro began laughing. This wasn't that bad after all. The girls in the audience who actually liked the song began to scowl, while those who hated it were laughing hysterically. Undoubtedly, this was even more popular at the boys' camp, as everyone of a male gender hated this song. The boys in the background began to writhe and squirm as Zach sung. They were melting, and dying! It was too much! When the part in the song came up where the singer began to express her undying love for the man that she'd lost out at sea, the boys dropped onto their backs and lifted their legs in the air—as if they were a cockroach on its back, dying from poison. Then, they snapped their legs together, and began putting on a synchronized swimming type display. It was very basic and very simple, but oh! It was funny! They moved their legs together, then opened them up then did kicks and scissors switches. One of the boys pretended that he was in a crow's nest being a look out, while another one smacked him up-side the head for goofing off. It was too much. Ro leaned her head against Zee's shoulder, holding her sides with her arms. She was laughing so much that it hurt.

"What's so funny about loosing a loved one?" he asked.

"Nothing. The mockery of the song is what's funny—as well as seeing a group of boys imitating water ballet." There's was the best skit Ro had seen all week long. Their skit was shorter than the actual length of the song, as Zack didn't sing all of the verses. Ro didn't think she'd be able to stand it if he had.

The director stepped up again, to thank the boys for their performance, and that in a few minutes, they would have the opportunity to have one of the girl's groups go over to perform for them. The boys began to head back, while the director began to announce the awards for the week.

There were scores for "all around" which meant that their scores were compared with those from the boys' camp. Then there were scores based on how well each individual campsite did just for the girl's camp. Then the average of all the scores for each event were tallied up, and compared between the camps. These scores weren't as valued as the all around scores, but did show whether one camp was better at an even than another.

Zee got the "Robin Hood" award for having the best archery score out of all the scores for both camps. He didn't receive any prize, but a printed out certificate with his name penciled in on it. This also meant that Laurel won the archery contest, campsite wise. In general though, the girls did better than the boys did at archery. Zee was also awarded the "Sharp Shooter" award for the rifle range, as he had the highest score there from both camps. However, the total value of the boys' scores were higher than the girls' camp total scores. Mandy insisted it was because of their video game experience. Zee didn't get a complete unchallenged championship for all of the target events as there was someone from the boys' camp who also got all 10 of the pigeons. Still, for the girls' camp. He beat everyone. The boys did better on this even than the girls did as well. He wondered what the scores would have been if they counted him as a guy, or if they didn't count his scores at all.

Carrie got third place out of the girls' campsites for one of her swimming relay events, but was sixth all around. Heather got second place on the 12 minute relay all around, but was first for the girls' camp. The boys seemed to beat the girls for the quick relay races, but the girls had more stamina for the longer races. Ro was already aware of the winners for the canoe races. Ro felt smug that they had first campsite wise for the three person race, and first for the two person canoe race all around.

The total times for each camp's canoe races really didn't reveal anything about which camp was better because both sides had had some really bad groups that completely obscured the results, so all the director announced was the all around results.

The last item to announce was the winner of the skits. Everyone was disappointed when the director announced that they were doing a new system of judging this year for skits. Too bad she hadn't mentioned this before they'd planned their skit. Instead of awarding points based on a rubric they were awarding "best of" for different categories. Some of these categories were: Most Funny, Best Drama, Most Effort, Most Original, Best Dialogue."

Mandy could already tell what award was going to each skit. The director had listed seven awards, and there were seven campsites, which equaled seven skits. Redwood got the, Diva Stars" Award. Probably because they couldn't think of anything else nice to say about their skit.

"How lame! They deserve the 'Cookie' award," Mandy scoffed.

"Wouldn't that be best to give to the cooks?" Zee asked.

"I don't think you know what the cookie award is…" Mandy laughed. She began to pantomime the "cookie" award. She held her hands out as if she was eating a big cookie, and pretended to gobble down on it. Then she asked, "Now what's left over when the cookie is done?"

Ro raised her eyebrow curisouly.

"Crummy. Crummy. Crummy." Mandy said, dusting her hands off of the invisible crumbs.

"Or how about the 'Corn on the Cobb' award?" Laura suggested.

"Why would they get that?"

"Because it's Corny."

"Or the 'Watermelon' award," Mandy suggested. She took a big bite out of an invisible watermelon and began to spit out the seeds.

Ro thought of one, "How about the 'Balloon' award?" She prtended to blow up a balloon, then released it and mimicked the sound that it would make flying around the room with her tongue between her lips, "PHBBBBBT!"

They began laughing among themselves. "With this new award system, how are they going to decide who gets to perform at the boy's camp then?" Ro asked.

The director answered her question as she finished. Spruce, the campsite that had done the first skit on the third day, was selected. It that the same skit that made Ro laugh to herself every time she thought of the punch line. It had been a really funny skit. When Jennifer rejoined them, she explained that they hadn't been selected because their skit took a while to perform, and they didn't want to encroach on the boys' schedule too much. Though truthfully, the director would rather have had Laurel's skit be shown to the boys rather than Spruce's. The joke of the skit had actually been on her. Luckily, she wasn't too sore in taking the joke.

The director explained clean up procedures for their campsite tomorrow, and who they had to check with before they could leave camp tomorrow morning. "A whole week. And nothing on Dr. Edmund," Ro sighed. Hadn't Bucky had enough of camp? Maybe they could kidnap him in the middle of the night and take him home where he could start looking on his home computer?

The director also urged everyone to be in bed by curfew and to go to sleep. She knew none of them would listen to her, though. She usually always was up for the entire night trying to get everyone in bed again. Everyone was dismissed, except for Spruce who would be escorted over to the boy's camp. While not everyone had participated in the skit, they were all invited to go over and watch it again.

"Come on!" Mandy said, dragging Ro.

"Where are we going?" Ro asked.

"To the boys' camp."

Ro quickly reached out to grab Zee's wrist and drag him along as well. Mandy positioned herself and Ro near the edge of the group of girls heading over to Spruce. She caught someone's eye, and pulled her over. "We'd like to come too," she said to her friend. Mandy seemed to have connections with everyone!

"Stay in the middle!" the girl from Spruce advised her. Ro felt herself being tugged into the middle of the group of girls as well as Zee and Mandy. They were going to the boys' camp!"

It was dark by now, so they didn't need to put on any obvious disguises. They just had to stay close to everyone else. They walked with the group to the Spruce campsite to get the supplies they needed, then back to the main road. They followed the main road into the boys' camp. They boys actually had a lit stage area to perform in, which was convenient as it was dark outside. How was it that they had all of the modern conveniences? Ro, Zee and Mandy seated themselves with the rest of the girls from Spruce, and waited while the boys' camp director announced what was going on, and the girls set up for heir skit. Ro was glad that she would be able to see it again. "It's starting," Zee whispered. Ro knew. She'd seen the skit before.

Two mountain hikers entered the scene. One of them walked in briskly, completely loaded from head to foot with camping gear. This was Angelina. Her assistant, however, was lagging behind. The instant that Kiara came crawling into the scene, breathless and completely exhausted, and only carrying a small back pack, everyone started laughing. Kiara was already known to be a class clown around the girls' camp, so naturally, everything she did had more of a tendency to be considered funny than if someone else did it. But the boys here wouldn't have gotten to know that part of her yet. Her character became apparent as she continued acting.

"We finally made it to echo mountain!" Angelina exclaimed.

Kiara was still busy putting on an act, by trying to pull herself up, but clawing her fingers up Angelina's leg. Instead she ended up pulling so hard on Angelina's leg that she pulled her pants down. This was a part of the act, and Angelina had purposely borrowed a pair of pants from another girl that was too large for her, and she'd worn a T-shirt that came down below her underwear, but the audience didn't know that. Kiara quickly pulled her pants back up, and quit pretending to kid around. They'd considered taking this part out of the skit as they were now at a boys' camp, but decided to do it any way because it'd been in the original version, and Angelina's extra long shirt did come down to mid thigh.

"Why do they call it echo mountain?" Kiara asked.

"Watch, I'll show you," Angelina offered. She cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, "Baseball!"

A quieter echo came somewhere from behind the audience, off to the right. "Baseball." It was followed by a quieter voice, behind them in the center. "Baseball." Then, "Baseball!" The last echo got louder! It was really three girls hiding behidn the audience.

"Here, let me try," Kiara said. "BALONEY!" Everyone in the audience was quiet, waiting for the echo. All was silent. Kiara dramatically looked left, then right, then up, then down. "You lied to me?" she turned to Angelina.

"Here, let me show you again. PILLOW!"

The echos sounded off. "Pillow. Pillow. PILLOW!"

"Okay, now I've got it," Kiara said, then tried again. "STRAWBERRY!"  
The echos sounded. "Strawberry. Strawberry. STRAWBERRY!"

Angelina took a turn, "Ferarri!" The echos sounded.

"Ferarri. Ferarri. FERARRI!"

"Hot dog!" Kiara went.

"Hot dog. Hot dog. HOT DOG!"

They were traking turns playing with the echos. Each time, the girls behind the audience mimicked what they said.

Everyone was laughing as while Angelina varied her words, Kiara was always listing food items. "You know, you think you're so smart with your simple, food category," Angelina took on a haughty tone. "Well, you haven't seen anything yet…"

"THE DIRECTOR HAS SEXY LEGS!"

.

.

.

.

.

"Baloney. Baloney. BALONEY!"

The message was simple enough to understand, even at the boys' camp.

When it came time for Spruce to pack up and leave, Mandy began to follow the group, but the broke off, and hid behind a tree. Ro and Zee followed her. They'd have to deal with getting back out later. "So what now?" Ro asked.

"We have to wait for a package delivery."

"Package?"

"Yeah. They're going to come and drop it off in a minute."

"Who's going to?"

"Compliments of cabin B3."

"What's in the package?" Zee asked.

"Something we'll need for tonight."

"You're not going to tell us what it is?"

"And ruin the surprise?"

It was longer than just a minute before a dark shadow approached them. Unfortunately, it wasn't Bucky. It was just one of his friends. He had something tucked under his arm. "Here," he said, handing the small parcel to Mandy." There's dozen servings."

"Servings, of what?" Ro thought.

"Here's your half, as promised," Mandy said, pulling out a bag from her coat. Just from the sound it made Ro knew that it contained a fair portion of Mandy's stock pile of candy.

"Good doing business with you," the boy said, then left them.

"I'm good to head back now," Mandy declared. "We have five minutes before we need to get back. Anything you guys need to do here?"

Did Ro dare mention that she wanted to talk to Bucky while they were here or should they just forget about it until morning when they wouldn't have to worry about getting caught? Then again, five minutes wasn't worth the trouble.

"No, we're good," Ro decided. They began to make their way back down the main road. Ro couldn't help but wonder why they only had five minutes to get back.

Up ahead on the trail, Ro saw two headlights. Someone was coming! She quickly dashed behind a tree, but Mandy pulled her out. She's here! Hurry up! They began to dash towards the truck. The truck slowed to a stop.

"Well, get in already!" Jennifer called to them from the driver's side window. They were busted.

"You're a little early," Mandy commented.

"So sue me," Jennifer replied. Jennifer was helping them out?

Mandy jumped into the back of the bed of the truck and lay down. Ro and Zee climbed in as well. Mandy pulled the tarp that was folding up in the back over them. Jennifer then began to drive forward, back into the girls' camp. She came to a stop behind the mess hall. "Okay, you can come out," she whispered. Mandy pulled the tarp off of them, then climbed out of the truck.

"Why are you helping us?" Zee asked. "Shouldn't you be turning us in?" he asked. "Won't you get in trouble if you don't?"  
"So many questions," Jennifer sighed, then explained, "It's my last year here as a counselor. I want to have a little fun too," she smirked.

"Did you get what you needed?" she asked Mandy.

"I sure did."

"Good," she then headed off toward the campsites, but Mandy didn't show any intent on following her.

"So you told Mandy what's in the package but not us?"

"No. I just told her I needed to pick it up."

"So when are you going to tell us what's in it?"

"Fine, I guess I'll tell you now," Mandy decided.

She opened the package. Inside were several packages of safety pins. "Saftey pins. Big deal."

"What you mean big deal? This is a big deal! It's the basis of my plan for tonight. Oh, and these as well…" She pulled out a 12 pack of "E-Z Sleep air filters."

"Mandy, the reason you're not sleeping well is because you keep getting up every night to go play pranks."

"It's not for me, but for Redwood!"

"Are you sure it's safe?" Zee asked.

"I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was."

"There's a difference between thinking and knowing it's safe." Ro had to agree with Zee on this point.

"If I went to the trouble to find some biodegradable toilet paper, I certainly would have read into the effects of a sleeping air plug in."

"But there's nothing to plug it into."

"No need to. These ones can just be set by your beside."

"So we have to sneak them into their tents?"

"You got it."

"This is certainly more adventurous than anything we've done before," Ro commented.

"Not for Zee here. Hiding all of those stink bombs all over their campsite… That was good."

"Sounds like a plan, then."

Mandy closed the lid of the box, then tucked it back under her arm. They then walked over to their campsite together. They were greeted by Carrie. "Hey, we were looking for you guys. We're taking the first years on a snipe hunt. Want to come?"

The first alarm that went off in Ro's mind, was that they were "first years." Also the fact that didn't she didn't know what a snipe hunt was bugged her. "What exactly is that?" she asked.

"Well, traditionally on the last night here, we take the first years out looking for these little birds that only come out at night. You get sticks together and smear tooth paste on them, and stick them in the ground. The smell attracts the birds, and then you try and catch one when they get close."

"Do you ever catch any?" Zee asked.

"About one or two a year," Mandy replied.

"That's strange considering the snipe is of a shorebird family. Snipes typically live in wet meadows and marshes rather than lakes… I wouldn't think that there was enough algae in toothpaste to have enough similarities to their normal dietary supplements…"

Ro quickly silenced him, "Zee reads a lot…" she covered for his encyclopedia type knowledge. Carrie thought it was funny, though.

"Mandy means that we usually catch one or two suckers a year. You can't be fooled though. It's just another little prank we do here. You get a bag and put some sticks in it then warm up a juice box and put it in with the sticks. Mandy here, also does the best imitation of pretending to have one squirming in her hands. It's really good when she starts crying out that it's slipping out of her hands while she puts it in the bag so everyone can feel it."

"You give me too much credit. Half the work is finding someone gullible enough who hasn't heard of a snipe hunt from someone else here already."

"Oh, but it's so much fun when as they're feeling the bag you throw it in their face and they start screaming… It just makes them want to find someone else as gullible and have them fall for the same trick," Carrie sighed.

"Well good luck to you, but we think we're going to pass," Ro said, walking away.

"I suspected something was up when they said that the birds came to the smell of toothpaste, but you certainly saw through their plan," Ro commented.

"Sorry, did I do something wrong?"

"No, you did fine. You just talk too much sometimes."

They joined the group around the campfire. They weren't singing rowdy camp songs or being rambunctious, but were talking in moderate voices and were laughing. After a few minutes of just sitting there, listening to Jennifer tell about a hike in the past year when there'd been a rattlesnake on the trail and how they'd hacked off its head with a shovel then cooked it up later, Zee reminded Ro that she might want to take a shower before going to bed. After all, it was getting really close to curfew. Ro debated in her mind if she really did want to. She had been swimming in the lake so it would be good to get cleaned up, but if they were going to go and do something with Mandy then why bother? It was camp. It was okay to be dirty for a while. Also, she didn't want to leave this pleasant atmosphere at the moment. Eventually everyone found their way into the circle. A half hour later the director came by to break up the group and send everyone to bed. Despite that they were being quiet in comparison with the other campsites, she insisted they put out their fires and get inside of their tents. They didn't have to sleep, but they weren't to leave the tents or make any noise.

"Want to go swimming?" Mandy asked on their way to their tents.

"At this time of night? It'll be colder than it was during the day! HECK NO!"

"Then do you just want to go and sit on the docks and star gaze?"

"Didn't the director just tell everyone to get in bed?" Zee asked.

"It's the last day of camp. What's she going to do? Send us home? Call our mommies?"

"I like how you think," Ro commented. "But what about Redwood?"

"Already taken care of."

"You implanted the E-Z sleeping things?" Ro asked

"It was perfect. Several of them were at the showers, while the rest were at the campfire. Then the director came by to send them all to their tents. It was beautiful. They won't dare venturing out for at least a half hour, but by then they'll all be drowsy, and will easily nod off."

"They're not still going to be asleep tomorrow morning, are they?" Zee asked. He was always thinking ahead, or about all consequences of a situation.

"Not any longer than they usually would. E-Z Sleep doesn't make you stay asleep, it only helps you to fall asleep, and sleep deeper."

"So it's all set then?" Ro asked. She actually didn't know what was set, or even what Mandy planned to do with the safety pins.

"It's all set. We've got an hour or two before we need to worry about things."

"Then let's go star gazing."

Zee just grabbed his overly large beach towel to take with them to the docks. It was easier than trying to take chairs or their sleeping bags with them. Ro's was still damp from when she'd used it earlier, so she'd just share with him. Mandy didn't mind that hers was a little damp.

The checked see if anyone was coming down the road, before heading out. Most everyone had gone to their tents when the director came by their campsite. No one was as daring as Mandy, Ro and Zee to completely ignore her warning right after she'd issued it. Other people would try to sneak out later, but no one else was completely disregarding her instructions right from the beginning.

Ro could hear the water of the lake quietly lapping at the shore. Zee noted that the position on the dock, right in front of the oar and life preserver store house would adequately shield them from being seen by anyone on the road. They carefully checked to see if the coast was clear again before making their way down to the dock. "Here should be good," Mandy said, sitting down on the dock.

"Someone would be able to see us from the road there, Zee pointed out. "We should be shielded from view if we lean up against the store house."

"Smart thinking."

Zee spread his towel out. Ro sat down on the ground next to him, until he actually invited her to sit with him on the towel. It was the polite thing to do, even though she knew that she was always more than welcome to share anything that Zee had. Mandy spread out her towel then lay down on it on her back. Zee's towel was so big that both Ro and Zee could fit on it shoulder to shoulder.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Mandy commented.

"They are."

Ball of gas burning at intense heat billions of miles away was beautiful? Beauty was another thing that was hard for him to understand, aside from fun. "The stars in the entire sky are actually divided into 88 constellations," Zee informed them. He wasn't good at noticing beauty, but her sure knew a lot about it.

"Too bad I can't recognize any of them," Mandy replied.

"Which ones are you looking for?"

"The Pheonix."

"It's in the southern hemisphere."

"Oh."

"What about Pegasus?" Ro asked. Zee began to trace out the pattern in the sky. "Looks more like a flying microwave with an antenna," Ro scoffed.

"What else can we see?" Mandy asked.

"Andromeda, the princess. Antlia, the pump. Aquila, the eagle. Auriga, the chariot driver. Bootes, the herdsman…" he began to list them alphabetically.

"Antlia, the pump? Who thought of that one? Spare us the list, what are the interesting ones?" Mandy laughed.

"Well there's the Perseus Family, the the Heavenly Waters, and the Hercules Family…"

"Draco the dragon. Show me Draco the dragon!" Mandy said excitedly.

He began to trace the star's outline in the sky. It was very hard to help Mandy get oriented to where it was exactly that he was tracing. From where Mandy was lying, it looked like he was just swirling his finger around in the sky. He would have preferred to just show her a hologram on his hand, but Ro had warned him about the strange puppet shows before.

"Star gazing is so much better when you're with someone who knows what they're talking about," Mandy commented.

Ro had to agree with her.

After they'd grown bored with having Zee point out all of the zodiac signs along the ecliptic, they lay there in silence. "I've really enjoyed spending this week with you guys. But… there's just one thing I'd like to ask you before this week is over. But, I don't want you to tell me if you don't want to…I mean, I know everyone has secrets, or things that they don't want anyone else to know, and I tried to respect that by not bugging you with questions about it during the week, but I was kind of hoping that by now you have told me what yours is."

"Secrets?" Ro tried to ask naively. Mandy had figured out that something was up with them. Heck if she was going to tell her, so she could turn them into the feds. It was like asking a superhero to reveal his true identity. No friend was worth getting caught by the feds for.

"I can't tell you, but I can show you," Zee said sitting up.

"Zee!" Ro tried to pull him back down.

"Please! If it causes disagreement between you two, DON'T!" Mandy tried to stop him.

"No, it's alright," Ro quieted down. Mandy wasn't going to turn them in.

Zee's body began to grow, then his holographic covering disappeared. Mandy didn't scream in terror, but gaped in awe. Zee then quickly covered up his synthoid body with his regular hologram. It felt good to be back again. He sat down on the towel next to Ro, and leaned his back against the storage house.

"You're a robot!"

"Complete with changeable holographic emmiter…So you know now." Ro chimed.

"Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"We've kind of got a problem with the feds. Trying to keep a low profile. But we must not have done a good job if you saw through his disguise," Ro said, picking a piece of dirt out of her fingernail casually. Being able to say that she was a fugitive from the law made her feel important. Of all the feelings she could be feeling, it was strange to think that important made the top ten.

"I didn't see through it. I just knew something was up. You never seemed to eat, and you just always seemed a little off center, you know? Now that I try to look back on it and put my finger on it exactly, what gave you away was the fact that you don't seem to emanate the whole female aura."

"Yeah, this was a new experience for Zee."

"What about that other boy, Bucky? Is he a robot too?"

"No, he's just strange all of the time."

"Is this why you couldn't go swimming?"

"Yeah. Zee's actually an excellent swimmer. But the water's not really good for his 'skin'."

"Too bad, it would have really been awesome having you on our canoeing team. I'm sure we could have fit four people in one canoe… Man… If I'd known that you could change your hologram, sneaking over to the boys' camp would have been so much easier."

"Not really. We still had to come up with ways to get past the counselors at the borderline," Zee commented simply.

"You mean that you went over there without me?" She faked a sniffle.

"We didn't do anything to them, so you don't have to worry about being left out."

"You know, I've been meaning to ask… I didn't ask last night because everyone else was bugging you about it, but what really happened at the water falls? I thought you were going hiking there but everyone said you went for crazy bread instead."

"We did both."

Mandy laughed and clapped her hands. "I'll bet Redwood was really mad about that! So they weren't lying!"

"No."

"And those were really your pants?"

"What pants?"

Mandy couldn't help but laugh to herself. "So, how did you do it exactly?" she asked.

"My hologram can cover more than just myself," Zee answered. He wasn't going to tell her about the bracelet.

"Whey they came up the path, all they found was a group of guys. Bucky had really hiked over here, but they just pretended that they didn't know that they'd managed to hike all the way into the girl's camp. We ordered the crazy bread so that we could get a ride in past the counselor in the pizza truck."

"Oh, perfect!" Mandy clapped her hands again. Ro was worried that she might be making a little too much noise in her excitement.

"Too bad it's the last night here. We could have had so fun trying to pass you off as the director to Redwood," Mandy turned to Zee.

He looked blankly at her. He'd never really used his hologram to intentionally deceive people just for the fun of it. "Don't mind Zee. He has a little trouble understanding the concept of playing mean tricks on people just for the fun of it."

"I'd say that she," Mandy corrected herself, "he, knew pretty well what she," she sighed and gave up. Zee would always be a girl to her, first, then a guy. "he, was doing when he put those stink bombs in their tents."

"That was personal," Zee said stiffly.

"It must have been really easy for you to just slip in there. You could pretend to be anyone of them that you wanted…"

"That's the part I'm good at," he smiled.

They gazed into the stars in silence for another few minutes before Mandy suggested they should get back. They collected their towels then hurried off back towards the main road. It surprised Mandy when one second she was looking at a handsome young man, and the next, Zee was there again.

"Any idea what time it is?" Mandy asked once they reached their campsite.

"2: 11 pm, and twenty seconds, twenty-one… twenty-two…" Zee informed her.

"It's so cool how you know that!" Mandy chimed.

"That's one expensive clock then," Ro muttered. The novelty had worn off for her.

"You think it's late enough to go over to Redwood?" Ro asked.

"Everyone else around them still going to be awake, but they should all be asleep. Let's go."

Mandy grabbed the box of safety pins from where she'd dropped it off at her tent. She tossed a couple of packages to Ro and Zee. "What are these for?" Ro asked.

"For their tents." Ro didn't understand, but around Mandy that was a very common thing before the explanation. "We're going to safety pin their tent doors and windows shut!"

"Why so many?"

"One safety pin every two inches. We might have to extend that to three inches on the windows to have enough to go around."

Zee was sure that Mandy had already considered the possibilities of what would happen to them in case of an emergency. In a worst case scenario they could easily rip a hole in their tents to climb out of. "Will they be able to get themselves out of their own tents?" he asked.

"Unfortunately yes, it'll just take a while to un pin all of the safety pins."

It seemed harmless enough. The only thing they'd have to worry about would be if someone had to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and found themselves pinned in. But, as they could get themselves out, there should be no problem.

"We're going to need some help for this one." Mandy then went over to wake up Carrie, Heather, and Laura.

The group set out quietly to Redwood's campsite. Everyone seemed to be sleeping heavily at the site. There weren't any tents here where there were quiet, muffled giggles, or the faint glow of a flashlight hidden under someone's sleeping bag. Even Marianne's tent seemed really quiet.

Ro and Zee went to work on the first tent after Mandy demonstrated where to place the pins. "One inch until you get one foot away from the ground, then two inches until you get about half way around the zipper. They'll be able to crawl their way out of the tent by then, to undo the rest with much more ease. Don't bother to put any on the windows if the windows don't open up. Oh, and quietly zip their zipper to the closing position if it isn't. If there's two zippers make sure that the pins are on both sides of the zippers. Leave them about an inch to get their fingers out to undo the first few safety pins. And, that's it. Happy hunting."

Ro and Zee carefully approached the first tent. Zee opened up the safety pins so that it would be easier for Ro to pin them into the tent, and kept a steady supply of them for Ro. It helped to work as a team rather than by trying to do it herself. She knew laughing would give them away, so she tried really hard not to. She bit her lower lip, to keep quiet while she just widely grinned. She contemplated on how she'd been playing a lot of pranks this week. All of them had been on Redwood. They actually hadn't done any on Bucky's cabin, or on the boys' camp as she'd initially expected she would. They'd actually only had the one prank played on them as well the entire week, and it had been by Redwood. Ro remembered Mandy telling her how Laurel was usually hit the worst with the pranks. Apparently their connection with the boys was really a "cease fire" kind of treaty.

Ro examined the windows. They didn't need to be pinned on this tent, as they didn't seem to unzip. It made her feel even more awed at how Mandy had found tents with windows that did unzip to use for their snake stunt. They moved onto the next tent. It took about ten minutes per tent to put all of those pins in. When Ro thought that they'd ran out of pins, Mandy always had more for them. It was absolutely wonderful. The managed to pin each and every single one of the tent doors in the Redwood camp shut as well as any of the windows that opened up. Near the end they'd had to space out their pins more, but the point of the matter was that they'd had enough to go around. "Now, for the finishing touch," Mandy smirked.

She went over to one of the Redwood tents. She found the fan device that kept the tent inflated, and standing upright. She turned the fan off. The tent held its figure for a second then slowly began to crumble. "Don't worry. They won't suffocate," she smiled. The tent had mesh windows that would allow for air circulation, so there was no need to worry when the tent gently fell over their sleeping bodies. It was like having a lightweight sheet placed over them.

They began to go around and find the tents that had fans which could be turned off. But what about the ones that were old-fashioned? It took a four way team effort to pull the poles and quietly disassemble them without letting the structure fall on the sleepers inside of the tent. They cleverly arranged the poles to spell out a short message to Redwood. While Mandy had wanted to say, "Up Yours," they didn't have enough tent poles. And when they tried to spell it out, it didn't really look like it spelled anything. Instead they left the simple message:

"L L L "

It was four in the morning by the time they returned to their camp. Had it really be that long? Ro was surprised that no one else had come by Redwood's site while they were wandering around doing their mischief. No matter, though. They hadn't been caught and that's what counted. "You going to get up early to watch when they wake up?" Ro asked Mandy.

I want to, but I don't want to draw attention to myself by being around the crime scene too eagerly. We put enough safety pins in place to give us some time to come and see them as they're still trying to get out of their tents.

Ro climbed up the net ladder. She was still in her clothes, and was either too tired or too lazy to change into her night clothes. Zee climbed up the ladder after her, and crawled into the sleeping bag with her. Mandy thought about making a tart comment about how they really shouldn't be sleeping in the same sleeping bag, but decided to just let them sleep peacefully, or to let Ro sleep peacefully. She doubted that Zee slept.

"Let's leave as soon as possible, tomorrow," Ro said, as she drifted off to sleep.

"Tired of camping?"

"Just a little. This prank stuff wears me out."

"Well tomorrow we can stay in a nice hotel then, and you can sleep in as late as you want.

"That'd be really nice." Ro said then dozed off completely.


	8. Day 7

When she'd fallen asleep she'd only been feeling a little tired. It was nothing compared to how tired she was when she woke up at 6:30 the next morning. "Need more sleep," she whined as she sat up. Why was she even getting up? She usually had another half hour before she got up.  Oh, right, Redwood. She was getting up now so she could see Redwood unpin all of the safety pins on their tent doors and windows.

            Mandy was up and dressed already. Ro wondered if she had even bothered going to sleep. It might have just been easier to stay awake for two more hours than to try and fall asleep then wake up again. She wondered how much better it was to at least get two hours of sleep verses pulling an all nighter.

            "Let's go check out the damage report," Mandy suggested once Ro was dressed.

            There was a crowd around Redwood's campsite, but no one was saying anything, and no one was laughing. Not because it wasn't absolutely the funniest thing they'd ever seen, but because they didn't want anyone in Redwood to know that they were just standing there watching them try to unpin the safety pins rather than going to help them. As the viewers began to quickly walk away from the scene they had their hands over their mouths to conceal their laughter.

            About all of the tents had woken up by now. When their counselor had first woken up and had found that she was pinned in she began calling for help, as she tried to figure out what was wrong. By then everyone else had woken up and were trying to get out of their tents. It was enjoyable to watch the rolling lumps inside the tent try and find their way to the door, or the hands poking out of the door of the tent unfastening a safety pin, then another, and another. The best part was watching Cynthia's tent. They were the last group to wake up, so Ro got to see the whole scene from the beginning. First there was the lump from when they sat up. Then the frantic pushing of the hands against the ceiling of the tent to lift it off of them. Then there were the sounds of everyone else in the tent being told to wake up. Suggestions went up about how the fan might have broken, or maybe there was a puncture in the framing of their tent. This was resolved by suggesting that someone go outside to check on the fan first. Then came the "The zipper's stuck!" cries followed by realization that it wasn't stuck but they were pinned in. The lumps began to move towards the side of the tent where the windows. Ro already knew that their windows didn't open.

            They screamed for someone to get them out but everyone else was still trying to unpin their own tent. "Well I'd say this was a successful prank," Mandy beamed. They returned to their campsite to clean up. Zee started packing up by first pulling down their sleeping bags from their net."

            "I actually think I'm going to miss sleeping in a tree," Ro said nostalgically.

            "Really?" Zee asked.

            "I'll get over it."

            Zee reached up to untie the cord that was holding up their mosquito netting. The weigh of the tent pulled the cord down with it from over the branch. Next came unweaving the net. After that they had to pack up their stuff inside of their tent and put their tent away. Once they had all of their stuff together in a pile they could then go and ask Jennifer to mark them off as having cleaned up their area. They'd have to wait until 8:30, though before they would be allowed to bring their car through to load up their stuff.

They had a half hour to kill, but there was plenty for them to do. Aside from cleaning up their own sleeping area and tent, there was one last final campsite clean up.

Jennifer was busying lighting a small fire for those who were cold to warm up by. She was completely ignoring the steps she'd taught them for how to start a fire with kindling, and had just piled up three logs and was holding a propane torch to the side of one of the logs. In less than a minute, the log caught fire.

Having kept their campsite clean all week long in order to try and be first for lunch and dinner, there was hardly anything to do. There were plenty of other people to finish cleaning up the campsite so Ro and Zee focused on helping Mandy get her tent cleared out. She had tons of candy wrappers, as well as several empty safety pins packages. When they finished helping Mandy pack up, Jennifer signed Mandy off for having a clean tent. "You guys hungry?" she asked them.

"A little," Ro admitted. She'd been up all night, and had worked up an appetite with all of the cleaning she'd done this morning.

"You'll each need one of these to claim your pre-packaged muffin, or as the director likes to call them, 'breakfast'," Jennifer said handing them each a coupon that said they had proved to their counselor that they'd cleaned up their area.

They headed up to the mess hall with their coupons. They were one of the first few people to finish cleaning up so there was still a good selection of muffins left. After Ro and Mandy had finished eating Zee offered to drive them back to the campsite as it was after 8:30.

They had plenty time to load up their car as there wasn't as much traffic at this time in the morning as there had been when they were first arriving. However, Zee suggested that the auction off or donate their camping gear to the girls in their campsite as they wouldn't have nay use for it anymore. "Hey, Mandy," Ro approached her. "We were just wondering if you wanted all of our camping stuff…"

The generous and enormity of the offer confused her into thinking that she'd heard wrong, "Could you say that again?"

"Zee and I travel light. We don't really have a place to store this stuff, so we were wondering if you or the other girls wanted to divide it up among yourselves."

"Are you serious?" Mandy asked, her jaw having open. That must be hundreds and hundreds of creds worth of stuff!

"Nope. If you guys don't take it, we're just going to give it to give it to a charity organization. But this way we don't have to pack it all in our car again."

"I could use a new sleeping bag… but are you sure?"

"Absolutely. Just keep things kind of hush hush about it until we leave though. We don't want to have to answer too many questions about it while we're still here."

"I gotcha," Mandy winked.

"If there's anything left, you might take it over to the other campsites."

"Sure thing."

Their site was clean, and they didn't have to worry about loading their car. There was only thing left to do before they went over to pick up Bucky—good-byes.

            This was why making friends sucked. They got to know someone, and then they have to leave them. "Mandy," Ro said quietly. She wasn't sure what to say. She doubted that they ever would meet up again, and it would be too much effort to try and keep in touch. They didn't want to drag her into the mess with the feds as they had Bucky, and now Casey.

 Mandy put her finger up to Ro's lips. There was no need to say anything. She'd figured out what was up for herself. "I'm thinking of applying as a counselor here. Jennifer said she'd give me a nice recommendation, when she leaves," Mandy winked. "If you're ever in the neighborhood, sometime in the summer, feel free to stop on by and see me."

Ro smiled, "I'd tell you to look for us in the news, but the feds kind of have the wrong idea about Zee, and the media likes to exploit that. However, any stories about a superhero and his blond side-kick saving the day are okay."

"I'm sure they are," Mandy laughed. She reached out to give Ro a small hug. "Good luck to you both," she whispered, then released her.

Zee held the door open for Ro to climb into the car then walked around to the driver's side and got in. He made a tight turn around on the road then began to head back down towards the mess hall again. Ro rolled down the window then stood on the seat an climbed half way out of it. Over the roof of the car she was waiving good-bye to all of the people in the Laurel campsite. Once they passed the Laurel campsite, Ro climbed back into the car and put on her seat belt and they continued on through to the boys' camp. No one was patrolling the borderline to make sure that the boys and girls didn't go over onto the other campsite. Right as they passed the border Zee resumed his regular hologram.

Bucky was waiting for them when they arrived. "What took you so long? You painting each other's nails or something?"

"Sorry, you missed out. I'll be sure and let you know next time so I can do yours at the same time," Ro replied sarcastically. They were actually late because they had to sweep out and roll up their tents and Bucky didn't.

            "So, did you find anything?" Ro asked as Zee loaded Bucky's baggage into the car as Bucky climbed in on the other side. Zee got into the driver's seat again and started the car and took off. There was no point in waiting around.

            "Actually… I did."

            "YOU DID!" Ro exclaimed, turning around so fast in her seat that were she a generation older she would have thrown out her back. It was a good thing Zee wasn't human as suddenly turning his head around in shock might have caused him to get into an accident while he wasn't looking at the road.

"You were right, Zee. Bennet's security clearance has been moved up a notch. I had to dig around before I got access to his computer's email. There were a few emails in there, but I'm not sure what they mean."

"What do you mean by that?" Ro asked.

"How good is your Latin?" he rephrased the question.

What was he talking about? Bucky pulled on his laptop and began to try and piece together bits and pieces from the emails he'd pulled up on the screen. "This one's from some sort of federal court…  It says that Bennet's request to have a case file sent to him was granted and that it would be arriving by mail and that he'd have to be there to pick it up in person, and sign for it because they the package needed delivery confirmation. However there's another email where he's asking for the same court case record again! Only, in the second email, it mentions something about a writ of certiorari." He unintentionally completely mispronounced "certiorari."

"What's that?" Ro asked. Zee knew. On occasions like this, being a walking, talking dictionary was useful.

"A writ of certiorari is a common law writ issued by a superior court to one of inferior jurisdiction demanding the record of a particular case. In Latin it means 'to be informed of.'"

"But what does that mean?"

"The superior court is requesting the records and outcome of a decision made by a lower court. They can review the decision of the lower court to either leave the lower courts decision as it was, or they can chose to hear the case for themselves to decide a new outcome."

"But why would that matter?"

"Sometimes someone feels that a lower court didn't make the right decision so they appeal to a higher court to hear the same case. This is how most cases make it to the Supreme Court."

"What's the name of the case, and why is it important to Bennet?" Ro asked.

"McGavin vs. U.S. I actually did some research about it on the web," Bucky said importantly.

"So what's it about?"

"The case itself is several years old. Basically, George McGavin was charged with treason against the United States."

"What kind of treason?"

"He used his government security clearance to access important confidential government files then turned the information over to a terrorist organization."

"So how did it turn out?"

"McGavin was found guilty."

"I'd say that he deserved it. So why did someone put in an appeal to have his case reheard by a higher court?"

"There must have been new evidence or something that would somehow convince the judges that he really wasn't guilty, or some other over-looked piece of information that influenced the higher court to hear his case again," Zee supplied the most plausible answer.

"The second email is asking for the outcome of that court case."

"So what was the outcome of the second trial?"

"I don't know. There's plenty information on the first ruling, but nothing on the second ruling. I couldn't even find anywhere that said that the case had been re-tried."

"Maybe if you spent more time looking?" Ro suggested.

Zee spoke up, "He won't find anything." It was a really bold statement, and pessimistic one.

"Why not?"

"If they're rehearing his case, it's probably to pass a difference sentence than to reinstate the old one."

"Which means?"

"That the court would most likely rule him as innocent."

"What? This guy sounds like a complete traitor to me!"

"I don't think the government would want the public to know that he'd been pardoned. They'd be thinking the same thing as you—that he shouldn't be excused. It's probably only because Bennet has some security clearance in the NSA that he would be allowed access to such information, or to such records."

"But still, why would they rule him as innocent then?"

"That's what Bennet wants to find out as well. Or maybe he already knows, and just wants the details of the case?" Bucky suggested.

"But what does McGavin have to do with Edmund?"

"You're not very bright. I'd have thought you'd have seen the connection between the two by now," Bucky insulted her. "Don't worry, this next email mentions Edmund's name, which should help you figure it out. He opened the next email.  "This next one is a carbon copy of an email sent to someone in the litigation business, because they've got to be the only people who know what this crud means. This one says that the court has issued the NSA and Edmund a subpoena duces tecum, "he butchered the pronunciation again, "as well as a date they need the documents by.The other important bit of information in the email says something about Edmund having been issued a subpoena ad testificandum by the court." It was a good thing that Zee was able to figure out what he meant. If not he'd have to have spelled it for him because to Ro, she only heard Bucky speaking gibberish.

"Translation please?"

"A subpoena duces tecum is a writ issued by a court at the request of one of the parties in a case. It requires a witness to bring to court any relevant documents under the witness's control." He simplified the meaning even more because he was sure Ro wouldn't understand this bit of information either, "The court is asking the NSA, as well as Edmund to turn in any evidence or documents that they might have by the deadline in the email."

"And the other one?"

"That's a writ issued by court authority to compel the attendance of a witness at a judicial proceeding. They're telling Edmund he has to come and testify in court." As his finished speaking own words sunk in, and the facts of the matter hit him. "Ro, do you know what this means?"

"I thought you knew all the answers!" Why was all of this confusing her so much?

"They're taking Dr. Edmund to court—on the accounts of treason against the NSA for helping Brother's Day!" Where did he pick that out of the emails?

"They can't do that!" Ro protested loudly.

"They already have. There's a court date set," Bucky spoke quietly.

"But they can't! No, this is awful! Don't you see? He's going to testify, and then he's going to tell them that you were the one who was on the sub, not him!"

"Maybe he'll just tell them you were doing him a favor?" Bucky tried to sound optimistic. He wasn't helping any though.

"You think Bennet's going to buy that? He'd love nothing more than to pin something like the Noesis on Zee's head!"

Bucky tried again to sound comforting, "But they have Sweet! Won't he say something?"

"They've had Sweet in their custody for a while. I'm sure they've gotten as much information as they could out of him, but I doubt that he'd reveal everything to Bennet about his terrorist activities and plans. Besides, if Bennet's got it out for me, there's not much that Sweet could say that would make a difference. I was the one on the sub. I helped them to get by. It's my fault."

"Don't say that. You couldn't have known any of this was going to happen. You were just trying to help someone else out, but things went a little wrong." Ro was definitely more comforting that Bucky.

"What if he admitted that he was forcing Edmund to do his dirty work?"

"That still wouldn't take the blame from me."

"What if…"

"Even if Sweet admitted that he put the bombs on, and that he forced Edmund to get him the coordinates, it wouldn't help. If Edmund testifies that I was the one on the sub that would be enough proof for Bennet to conclude that I was reprogrammed by Brother's Day, and that I was willingly helping them out. And it'd be true—it's my fault he got through the defenses around the Noesis."

"They what if Edmund doesn't testify? What if we can bust him out of the NSA before he's put on trial?" Ro suggested hopefully.

"Even I can see through that one," Bucky scoffed. "Breaking a man out of the NSA who used to work for terrorists… it'd sound to me like you were helping get one of your 'own' out of trouble."

"Yeah, but…"

"Besides, don't you think they've already heard his sob story? This court case is just to make things official.  He actually has to say it in court for it to count."

"Isn't there any way to get out of this?" Ro asked hopefully.

"If we can find those schematics for the conscience module Dr. Selig put in me, then we would be able to prove that I was a credible witness.  We could file for our own writ of certiorari in which I could testify."

"Couldn't you testify in court now?"

"They wouldn't believe anything I said now. They'd think I was programmed to say it rather than of my own free will."

"So we're back to looking for Selig's old files again."

"It seems so."

"And to do that we decided that we would need to get the codes into the Sub Rosa Terminal from Edmund, to find information on where to find those files…"

Ro bean to piece things together in her mind while verbally repeating them out loud, "And then to do that we needed to find Edmund to ask him to do that favor for us by giving us those codes… But we couldn't find him when we looked for him online… Then he appeared that one night at the restaurant, but then disappeared again."

"But now we know where to look for him," Zee filled in for her.

"Where?" How did he know this?

Bucky read the court date and time, as well as place that Edmund was scheduled to appear. "The NSA probably has him in custody if they've got a date for him to appear in court. If you guys are careful not to get caught, you might be able to try and hang around the court house to see if you could get a word with him if he goes out for recess or something."

"So we shouldn't expect to find him online anywhere…"

"Don't worry, I'll keep you posted on what turns up in Bennet's email box."

"So what do we do until then?"

"We wait," Zee said solemnly.


End file.
